GMG Classical Music Forum

The Music Room => Great Recordings and Reviews => Topic started by: Mandryka on June 09, 2020, 09:20:52 PM

Title: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 09, 2020, 09:20:52 PM
This is a big area, there's a lot of it, and much of it is good, so I thought I'd start a thread, if only to collect it all together.

I'll kick it off with something I've been listening to this morning, a lyrical, gruff assemblage of cello pieces by Ralph Shapey called Krosnick Soli, played on this CD by Scott Kluksdahl. Written in 1983.  I think it uses some sort of scordatura, and the result is a really striking contrast between the lower registers and the higher ones, as if the lower string is an intruder in the party. Each of the Krosnick soli has a distinctive emotional flavour, but the piece manages to work as a whole, unified in some way by its harmonies I guess.

It's been a while since I listened to Shapey and in truth I'd forgotten what an interesting, spiritual, composer he is. There's a lot of his music on record now  - quartets, piano etc.

(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b2735c6340196b37a3a204836adc)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 10, 2020, 09:15:10 AM
Lachenmann's Toccatina for solo violin  uses extreme instrumental techniques - for example, you pluck the strings with the metal nut at the end of the bow, the thing normally used to tighten the horse hair. It makes a lovely sound.
(https://img.discogs.com/HDBNNzIiqo77NKplyYc5mrZ1Drk=/fit-in/500x500/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1882976-1362135622-9012.jpeg.jpg)

How can a plink and a pizzz be turned into music? Are these random sounds or is there some sort of plan? You never know with this sort of thing whether the interest is from the novelty or the poetry.  I think the latter - I think this is gentle, refined music. Full of air, ethereal. This is what angels sound like.

But I'm not sure.

There are lots of recordings,  the one in the pic was chosen pretty well at random.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 12, 2020, 08:36:40 AM
(https://img.discogs.com/xfKZWqO2MZBOCvk6CLlFnsY3-CY=/fit-in/223x226/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3236477-1343346588-7627.jpeg.jpg)

Luciano Berio wrote Sequenza Vi for Walter Trampler in 1967, who recorded it above. The composer described it as follows

QuoteSequenza VI for viola, written for a modern soloist in the widest and most responsible sense of the term, is a piece of great virtuosity (a very indirect homage to Paganini's Capricci) where the same basic harmonic sequence is continuously repeated, developed and transformed. It is a formal study on repetition, on the relationship between often repeated modules and modules appearing only once.

Listening to it today I was struck that much the same could be said of Franco Donatoni's Ciglio (1989) for violin, which as far as I know has never been commercially recorded (if someone has a recording, please say) Fortunately there is this youtube from a concert by Lorenzo Gorli

https://www.youtube.com/v/09OEVj0s6qM

There's more to the Donatoni than repetition. With Donatoni you are swept along a road and suddenly, you've had enough, it becomes boring and there's a transition -- those transitions are what make the thing special of course. And this is very much what Bernhard Lang is interested in, in the series of pieces called Monadologie. There are none that I've heard for solo string instrument, but here's one for flute (2012)


https://www.youtube.com/v/JcMdChOES5c



Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 12, 2020, 11:36:08 PM
Very valuable study of Boulez's Anthèmes 1 here

https://fdocuments.in/document/goldman-understanding-pierre-boulez-anthemes.html

And I take the opportunity to mention this Irvine Arditti 2017 release, which I've only just discovered, and it is exceptional.

(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51H1iOSV5QL._SS500.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 13, 2020, 04:43:28 AM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/416O6BYhXfL.jpg)     (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51AuAeV9FOL._SY355_.jpg)


I'm going to make a single note about two pieces, Isan Yun's Glissées (1970)  for solo cello and Richard Barrett's Ne songe plus a fuire (1985) for amplified cello, not because of a shared style or sonority (but they do both have a sense of exploring the sound possibilities of the instrument quite fully, but they're not the same instrument), but more because of the extreme darkness of the mood they elicit in me.  This expressiveness was certainly part of Barrett's design, he was inspired by Roberto Matta's sequences of canvases with the same name, an example of one will give you the flavour

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/42/b4/9a42b4e62f706835a8815dfca11281c0.jpg)



The Barrett seems to me to be a major masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/v/8FZYEYnQtgM

https://www.youtube.com/v/qDch-EqkOJw
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 14, 2020, 02:53:20 AM
I've had a real soft spot for Klaus Huber for years now, ever since I found some comments of Ferneyhough praising his music to the skies. What a pleasure to discover his piece for solo . . . called Ein Hauch von Unzeit, which he's describes as " A Lament on the Loss of Musical Thought – some Madrigals for Solo Flute or Flute with any other Instruments".  It is in some sense aleatoric, and it has been recorded many times, on many instruments. The one which is really haunting me is on this CD by Bjorn Ianke for solo double bass

(https://grappa.no/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PSC1136-1018x1024.jpg)

It is a exercise in disintegration, the double bass, deep and quiet, brings out the quality of lamento. A masterful performance of a masterpiece.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on July 17, 2020, 12:35:58 AM
(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b2734461b4b9d493379485e4274f)

Gnarly, twisted, dark: this fury is inside. Anger which doesn't show up in brutal action but in brooding horror.


Very good. Play it once and if you're like me you'll want to hear it again straight away.


Rebecca Saunders has also written a double bass concert of the same name, or rather Fury II,  which I missed in London last year.

Here on yourtube, a different performance

https://www.youtube.com/v/T46RjS20-cg
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: some guy on August 04, 2020, 07:26:38 PM
Very nice list so far. I'll be returning to it now and again.

You know that Dumitrescu and Avram have many solo pieces, especially for cello and for double bass.

Those are outrageously gorgeous and fun.

And you know the Hespos album of solo works? I've not listened to it, much, but it's there. And I can listen to it any time I want. :-)

Anyway, thanks for this. I hope others will join it. Perhaps a wind and a brass thread could be done along the same lines.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on August 04, 2020, 07:47:13 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on June 13, 2020, 04:43:28 AM
   (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51AuAeV9FOL._SY355_.jpg)



Thanks for reminding me of this. I like both Palm and B A Zimmermann, have another recording of Intercomunicazione.

For solo cello:
(https://img.discogs.com/ABSK-7ztxjUyMKQ_tOC2MYofE8U=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-4240072-1359422134-7405.jpeg.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on August 05, 2020, 01:05:26 AM
Quote from: T. D. on August 04, 2020, 07:47:13 PM

For solo cello:
(https://img.discogs.com/ABSK-7ztxjUyMKQ_tOC2MYofE8U=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-4240072-1359422134-7405.jpeg.jpg)

Have you had the chance to hear Arne Deforce play the trilogia?

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41TLrWak25L._SX342_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on August 05, 2020, 08:05:48 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on August 05, 2020, 01:05:26 AM
Have you had the chance to hear Arne Deforce play the trilogia?

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41TLrWak25L._SX342_QL70_ML2_.jpg)

No I haven't, thanks for the suggestion! I've only heard Uitti and vaguely felt there was more to the music than her performance brought out.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: André Le Nôtre on August 21, 2020, 08:52:06 PM
An interesting thread. Not sure exactly what time period you are looking at here. However, I think a monumental piece in the genre is the Sonata for Unaccompanied cello Op. 8 by Zoltan Kodaly. The recording by Janos Starker on Period LP (original issue, early 50s) is one of the very greatest recordings ever made-technically, musically, and sonically. In terms of sound quality, I would put this up against anything. I play this for people on my system and their jaws drop to the floor. One of my favorite LPs.

Also belonging to this genre are the incredible pieces for solo violin by Karl Nielsen: Prelude and Theme with Variations, and Preludio e Presto.

Ersnt Reijseger also has composed some interesting pieces (soundtrack to Cave of Forgotten Dreams).

I love the organ accompaniment here (to five-string cello). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIMvM8u9C-o

Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on September 09, 2020, 10:17:01 AM
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71R2cLeqZ8L._SS500_.jpg)

I just note that this is an exceptionally interesting release of double bass pieces, played by Michael Francis Duch,  widely available on streaming at least in sub-CD quality. Lene Grenager a collaborator in Spunk of the great Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje.  In Flac here

https://www.prostudiomasters.com/album/page/26095

There are two solo works for bass: Rondo for Michael and Practice -violence, for bass with voice accompaniment in English -- very amusing voice accompaniment too.  In addition the recording includes the quartet Moving the stones where he quadrupels himself with two times bass, radio and voice. Moving the stones is presumably a reference to Christian Wolff's Stones.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on September 11, 2020, 06:21:11 PM
Perhaps "improv" rather than "classical", and I'm sometimes sceptical about Beckett inspiration, but I just enjoyed all 14-odd minutes of this (solo bass) on Bandcamp:
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1047912699_16.jpg)

This earlier release, which I haven't heard but am considering, includes a shorter rendition of the 5 Fizzles:
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2346320604_16.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on September 25, 2020, 07:15:13 AM
Quote from: some guy on August 04, 2020, 07:26:38 PM
Very nice list so far. I'll be returning to it now and again.

You know that Dumitrescu and Avram have many solo pieces, especially for cello and for double bass.

Those are outrageously gorgeous and fun.

And you know the Hespos album of solo works? I've not listened to it, much, but it's there. And I can listen to it any time I want. :-)

Anyway, thanks for this. I hope others will join it. Perhaps a wind and a brass thread could be done along the same lines.

Only just saw this post, for some reason


Quote from: some guy on August 04, 2020, 07:26:38 PM


You know that Dumitrescu and Avram have many solo pieces, especially for cello and for double bass.

Those are outrageously gorgeous and fun.



Ah yes indeed, the incredible Medium II on this CD

(https://img.discogs.com/cplsc45oxIsqEtzvf3nT7dukzPQ=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-496267-1123575999.jpg.jpg)

(Can anyone let me have a copy of Medium III ? Or find me one for sale at less than £20 say?)

There's also this viola solo, which was one of the first pieces that I ever heard by Dumitrescu - Holzwege

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



Quote from: some guy on August 04, 2020, 07:26:38 PM


And you know the Hespos album of solo works? I've not listened to it, much, but it's there. And I can listen to it any time I want. :-)



You must mean this one

(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91iXqc9OYVL.__AC_SX342_QL70_ML2_.jpg)

I got it out when I started this thread and there's no solo strings music on there.

Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on September 25, 2020, 11:13:06 AM
Here's something maybe worth hearing - Frank Bedrossian, The Spider as an Artist for solo cello.

https://soundcloud.com/franck-bedrossian/the-spider-as-an-artist-2014-for-solo-cello-excerpt

And here on a CD

https://www.youtube.com/v/BVaVJvsaczs&ab_channel=L%C3%A9oWarynski-Topic
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on September 25, 2020, 11:24:18 AM
And this may be even more strange, Maps of Non-Existent Cities: Berlin for solo violin by Dmitri Kourliandski


https://www.youtube.com/v/HP2Mp-FPucs&ab_channel=VladislavPessin-Topic
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on September 27, 2020, 12:03:13 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on September 25, 2020, 11:13:06 AM
Here's something maybe worth hearing - Frank Bedrossian, The Spider as an Artist for solo cello.

https://soundcloud.com/franck-bedrossian/the-spider-as-an-artist-2014-for-solo-cello-excerpt

And here on a CD

https://www.youtube.com/v/BVaVJvsaczs&ab_channel=L%C3%A9oWarynski-Topic

In the end I enjoyed Séverine Ballon's recording of Bedrossian's The Spider as Artist rather more than the one on CD, it's a bit more leisurely, which always suits me. Séverine Ballon is a composer in her own right, and she has this recording devoted to solo cello music by other classic composers - I'm listening the opening Rebecca Saunders piece, the eponymous Solitude, as I type this

(https://img.discogs.com/jC4nkFrutgMvNTQXaA08zgD3sRI=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-8161354-1456275963-2764.jpeg.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on September 30, 2020, 12:11:02 PM
Here's Dumitrescu looking like he should at Cafe Oto

https://www.youtube.com/v/_q1GF73uhmo&ab_channel=Polca
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on September 30, 2020, 01:05:55 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on September 30, 2020, 12:11:02 PM
Here's Dumitrescu looking like he should at Cafe Oto

https://www.youtube.com/v/_q1GF73uhmo&ab_channel=Polca

I like this.
WTF is Dumitrescu wearing around his neck? Looks almost like a USA flag (say it ain't so...).  :o
The other works on the program look even more appealing to me, even though they're OT to this thread, possibly not written by Dumitrescu and apparently not on Youtube:
"Three" - John Edwards, Gwen Reed, Otto Willberg, spectral improvisation for three double basses
"Five" - Sarah Gail Brand (trombone), Chris Cutler & Mark Sanders (percussion), Tim Hodgkinson & Yoni Silver (bass clarinets)


Ran across Dumitrescu's Gnosis for solo doublebass on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUrSG6OxbUw

And better-known stuff (though not to me):

Berio Sequenza XIVb arr. Scodanibbio for double bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF4uQegDWE0
Xenakis Theraps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_p5pzqZjG0
Persichetti, Parable XVII for double bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbMkukOkm3w
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 02, 2020, 01:22:40 AM
https://vimeo.com/374302445

Evan Johnson, Dozens of canons: Anaïs Faivre Haumonté, Severine Ballon

http://riotensemble.com/a-few-moments-with-evan-johnson/

QuoteThe performers' medium is sound; my medium is notation. I try to use that medium to the limit of its capabilities—not necessarily just to represent sound or sounding actions, per se, at least not in a direct and unambiguous fashion, but as a semi-opaque code that generates situations for the performers to inhabit and navigate.

That means a lot of things for me, but one thing it means is that there are a lot of ambiguities in my notation, quite intentionally; a lot of little contradictions, impossible specificities and vague symbols. Everything works, though, more or less, within the domain of a recognizably standard symbology.  These aren't graphic scores, and they aren't stimuli to improvisation or a more broadly spontaneous response.

I'm not sure it's "theatre" per se because relatively little of all this makes its way to the audience.  What one hears in my work is kind of like a shadow, or an afterimage, or a watercolor reproduction of a photograph that you can't see. This happens in a less extreme fashion in this piece than in quite a few others of mine, maybe; I'm thinking in particular of a cello solo premiered by Séverine Ballon just last week, "dozens of canons: Anaïs Faivre Haumonté," which is an extremely detailed and intricately worked-out piece which teeters almost exclusively, in both controlled and uncontrollable fashions, between the verge of inaudibility and actual silence. But the tendency is still there in "L'art 3" as well.  This is one of several ways that experiencing my work from the audience is less like hearing and more like overhearing.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on October 02, 2020, 07:36:35 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on October 02, 2020, 01:22:40 AM
https://vimeo.com/374302445

Evan Johnson, Dozens of canons: Anaïs Faivre Haumonté, Severine Ballon

http://riotensemble.com/a-few-moments-with-evan-johnson/

Thanks for posting this. Going way back (as long as 20+ years), when I read the then-active rec.music.classical.contemporary newsgroup, Evan was a frequent contributor. Just this year I was catching up after long neglect and noticed (on newmusicbox iirc) that he's had some compositional success.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 02, 2020, 07:41:20 AM
Quote from: T. D. on October 02, 2020, 07:36:35 AM
Thanks for posting this. Going way back (as long as 20+ years), when I read the then-active rec.music.classical.contemporary newsgroup, Evan was a frequent contributor. Just this year I was catching up after long neglect and noticed (on newmusicbox iirc) that he's had some compositional success.

I was really struck by what he said in the interview -- whatever you think of the music, he has some interesting ideas about what music is. amw likes his music I think, I'm not sure, I should give his stuff more time.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on October 02, 2020, 10:46:50 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on October 02, 2020, 07:41:20 AM
I was really struck by what he said in the interview -- whatever you think of the music, he has some interesting ideas about what music is. amw likes his music I think, I'm not sure, I should give his stuff more time.

Thanks. The cello piece is ultra spare/sparse, not where my head (or listening preference) is at these days. Will explore the writings and look for other works.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 02, 2020, 12:06:21 PM
Quote from: T. D. on October 02, 2020, 10:46:50 AM
Thanks. The cello piece is ultra spare/sparse, not where my head (or listening preference) is at these days. Will explore the writings and look for other works.

Yes my sentiment entirely.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 09, 2020, 12:04:18 PM
This is new to me, Ferneyhough's Intermedio Alla Ciaccona for solo violin.

https://www.youtube.com/v/-P1VHrV5SMU&ab_channel=Takaosubforsub

He who says chaconne for solo violin says Bach partita of course.

Available on this CD

(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiODM1OTExNS4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE1MDI2MzAxMzl9)

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8359115--miranda-cuckson-invisible-colours
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 17, 2020, 07:11:41 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/CSG-pK2PrBQ&ab_channel=Takaosubforsub

James Dillon's Del Cuarto Elemento for solo violin, from the booklet

Quote. . . the solo violin piece
Del Cuarto Elemento (1988), again
written for Irvine Arditti, embodies an
ultra–virtuosic 'radical new music'
approach to the instrument, involving a
microtonal world full of harmonics,
constant timbre changes and, not least,
complex rhythmic shifts and
simultaneous juxtapositions of, for
example, 5 pulses against 11, requiring
the various fingers of the violinist's left
hand to lead independent but closely
related lives. The bow hand too can
have a separate existence that goes
beyond merely articulating what is
happening in the left hand. 

So far so good.


Then comes this

QuoteIn this piece, the 'Fourth Element' is
water. As far back as Debussy, water
had become an emblem of (and
metaphor for) compositional flux,
fluidity and ambiguity. Here though, as
so often, Dillon's immediate points of
reference are literary rather than
musical. The work's title invokes a poem
by Jorge Luis Borges,

Yes well OK, but it's hard to find a proper translation of the Borges into English or French -- but there's Google Translate.

But now, wait for it, there's this

Quotebut a deeper
influence comes from a passage in
Gaston Bachelard's commentary on
Isidore Ducasse (AKA the Comte de
Lautréamont) that, in Dillon's words,
posits "a distinction between animal
existence on earth – as the dream of
reality – and existence in water – as
the reality of dreams – explaining the
essential difference as one of 'dwelling'
on surfaces as opposed to being
'enveloped' within a volume." Surfaces,
in this case are represented by clear
figurations, volumes by more amorphous
gliding and interlocking textures. At
the outset, the surfaces hold sway, but
by the end, the tables have been turned.

???
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 18, 2020, 09:20:45 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/43txN145VO4

Enno Poppe Haare, sounds from the violin like Sciarrino - very nice IMO.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on October 18, 2020, 10:05:49 AM
And here's Sciarrino's Capriccio di una corda for violin to compare with the Poppe (Sciarrino fans will know what to expect before they listen. Very good though.)

https://www.youtube.com/v/3cj4gr1qX2I&ab_channel=StradivariusClassicalMusic
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on November 10, 2020, 01:30:00 PM
https://www.youtube.com/v/EI8B0HmZYeA

Dmitri Kourliandski's prepositions for violin solo. Lachenmann style use of the instrument, but formally not really like Lachenmann, at least from my superficial point of view. I like.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on November 23, 2020, 06:13:33 AM
(https://d42bo2445p9pu.cloudfront.net/assets/uploads/2017/03/14005327/cover92059.jpg)

Amusing review here:

https://www.sonoloco.com/rev/composers/fox/inner/inner.html

review here

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/feb02/Fox.htm

I concur with the one thing in both those reviews  - Inner, which sounds at first totally unpromising, repays getting to know.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on November 25, 2020, 01:17:31 AM
Mark Andre, iv2 for solo cello -- much better to see and hear than to hear without seeing

https://www.youtube.com/v/5njhI0e2Rgc&ab_channel=ElsaDorbath
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Artem on November 25, 2020, 03:41:46 AM
I think this disk fits the theme of this topic. Lamb's piece is very nice.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71bSnpFr94L._SX522_.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on November 26, 2020, 09:42:44 AM
Quote from: Artem on November 25, 2020, 03:41:46 AM
I think this disk fits the theme of this topic. Lamb's piece is very nice.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71bSnpFr94L._SX522_.jpg)

Thanks, will listen very soon.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on November 26, 2020, 09:44:56 AM
(https://d42bo2445p9pu.cloudfront.net/assets/uploads/2017/03/14005007/cover28532.jpg)

James Weeks. Tide for solo cello, minimal, complex in a minimal way, solo cello. Single note and overtones sort of thing. Beautiful. Part of a series, slightly more info here

https://divineartrecords.com/recording/james-weeks-tide/
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on November 29, 2020, 02:08:35 AM
Liza Lim's An ocean beyond earth, a prepared cello piece. She's not a composer who's caught my imagination up to now but this is worth noting, I think, because of the technique -- and anyway many people love her music.

https://www.youtube.com/v/N6PhllQ6zQU&ab_channel=LizaLim

And here's another one I feel the same way about, Invisibility for cello  -- this time the thing worth seeing is the twisted bow.


https://vimeo.com/98817622
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Brian on November 29, 2020, 08:19:34 AM
(https://b2b.naxosusa.com/Images/LoRes/CoverArt/ODE1381-2.jpg)

"Cellist Wilhelmina Smith's second album release on Ondine continues exploring contemporary Nordic repertoire for solo cello. In her new album Smith has focus on Danish contemporary composers, Per Nørgård (b. 1932) and Poul Ruders (b. 1949). Both Nørgård and Ruders are known for their large-scale orchestral works. Nørgård, in particular, is known for his eight symphonies and has been hailed by many as one of the greatest living symphonists. It is therefore intriguing to look closer to his two very early lyrical solo cello sonatas, early masterpieces written just before completing his 1st Symphony. In 1980, the composer revised his second sonata by adding an extensive second movement, almost an entirely new sonata, to the existing work. Nørgård's 3rd sonata "What – Is the Word!" from 1999 is a short "Sonata breve" that takes its title from a quote by Irish playwriter Samuel Beckett. Another major Danish composer of our times, Poul Ruders (b. 1949), has also written 5 symphonies alongside several concertos and three operas. Ruders wrote his 10-movement Bravourstudien in 1976, just at the brink of a major stylistic change. This work is a set of variations on a Medieval folk tune "L'homme armé". In this work, however, the original theme is heard at the very end of the work."
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 02, 2020, 12:44:03 AM
(https://www.forcedexposure.com/App_Themes/Default/Images/product_images/thumbnail/R/RCD2068CD_THMB.jpg)


Ola Henrik Moe's Ciaccona for violin lasts 43 minutes and I think it is indeed a chaconne. It uses violin techniques which go beyond the conservative conservatory. I wonder if this is a single take, 43 minutes can't be easy physically. This music is full of dramatic contrasts and I suppose that helps.

Like Maja Ratke, Moe's the music is more visceral than intellectual, we are faced with a circus act of violin events which are designed to make us go wow! I suppose the duration is also designed to impress.

Holding a listener's interest for three quarters of an hour with an instrument that can't do polyphony very easily is quite a big ask. I can imagine that this sort of bravura music would work well in a concert, where it becomes a bit like watching someone face a challenge.

Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 02, 2020, 07:53:58 AM
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/RwwAAOSwv0tVWiyr/s-l300.jpg)

This is a sequence of six pieces for solo string instruments and a duo. Some of the solo pieces are quite long (eg 20 minutes of viola)  The style seems similar to Rihm's Uber die Linie cycle, long lines, standard instrumental techniques, the sounds have a determinate pitch, mostly bowed, quite tonal and consonant, a free structure. If anything Nikolaus Brass's Songlines is more expressive than Rihm, more bleak. The duo for violin and double bass is a high point for me, partly because it is more contrapuntal, partly because it is more articulated, and partly because the growling bass makes such a cool noise!  The bass appears magically in a solo piece as finale - epilogue.


https://cdn.naxosmusiclibrary.com/sharedfiles/booklets/NEO/booklet-NEOS11021.pdf

I think this is very much worth experiencing if you've got the stamina,  there's something very human about it, full of humanity and tenderness. When I'm in the mood, I find Brass's chamber music most rewarding.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 03, 2020, 12:51:32 AM
Quote from: Artem on November 25, 2020, 03:41:46 AM
I think this disk fits the theme of this topic. Lamb's piece is very nice.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71bSnpFr94L._SX522_.jpg)

And the Schweinitz! Have you heard the other recording called Plainsong Glissando Modulation, also on Neos?
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Artem on December 03, 2020, 03:53:22 AM
I haven't, unfortunately. I wish I could hear all NEOS releases someday.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 11, 2020, 05:19:13 AM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61SWGRTh%2B4L._AC_SL1425_.jpg)


Christopher Burns is a composer who worked on the electronics side of La Lonranaza Nostalgica . . . on the recording with Miranda Cuckson on the fiddle. After that experience he wrote Come Ricordi, come sogni, come echi as a sort of homage - in fact it comes across well at home as it includes no spacialisation. Nono type techniques including a bit of vocal stuff, and not long - 15 mins or thereabouts. Derivative but honestly so, and rather nice.

The longest piece on the above CD is by Georg Frederick Haas, de terrae fine. It has been commercially recorded before on a viola on this recording by Barbara Lüneburg

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51GiI-2STKL._SX355_.jpg)

For me, qua listener, the problem with this 20 minute long piece by Haas is predictable - how to make it flow, how to make it appear logical and inevitable. And IMO the most impressive recording I've heard from that point of view is by a Dutch violinist called Diamanda La Berge Dramm - not commercial, but very well recorded and here on YouTube - well worth a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/v/v54gB5cbpbU
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: not edward on December 11, 2020, 05:39:07 AM
Quote from: Brian on November 29, 2020, 08:19:34 AM
(https://b2b.naxosusa.com/Images/LoRes/CoverArt/ODE1381-2.jpg)

"Cellist Wilhelmina Smith's second album release on Ondine continues exploring contemporary Nordic repertoire for solo cello. In her new album Smith has focus on Danish contemporary composers, Per Nørgård (b. 1932) and Poul Ruders (b. 1949). Both Nørgård and Ruders are known for their large-scale orchestral works. Nørgård, in particular, is known for his eight symphonies and has been hailed by many as one of the greatest living symphonists. It is therefore intriguing to look closer to his two very early lyrical solo cello sonatas, early masterpieces written just before completing his 1st Symphony. In 1980, the composer revised his second sonata by adding an extensive second movement, almost an entirely new sonata, to the existing work. Nørgård's 3rd sonata "What – Is the Word!" from 1999 is a short "Sonata breve" that takes its title from a quote by Irish playwriter Samuel Beckett. Another major Danish composer of our times, Poul Ruders (b. 1949), has also written 5 symphonies alongside several concertos and three operas. Ruders wrote his 10-movement Bravourstudien in 1976, just at the brink of a major stylistic change. This work is a set of variations on a Medieval folk tune "L'homme armé". In this work, however, the original theme is heard at the very end of the work."
Sadly this sounds like a real lost opportunity. The first three Nørgård sonatas--all mentioned in this description--have already been recorded by Nørgård's regular collaborator Morten Zeuthen, but the fourth and fifth have not.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: not edward on December 11, 2020, 06:19:37 AM
The first of Clara Iannotta's Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar series:

https://youtube.com/v/8kqX6TXMBow

A short piece that led to the first in a series of recent string quartets.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Leo K. on December 11, 2020, 10:22:34 AM
Interesting thread!

I offer my own solo cello score (never recorded) here with PDF below (not for sale it's free). I think you could call it conceptual art music:


"Out of a total of 46 Figures (and one Appendix) developed by Daniel E. Prindle in "The Form of the Preludes to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites" (2011) there are Figured Bass Reductions (Figures 2.1 and 2.2) of the Prelude from Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 on pages 17 and 20, a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 3.1) of the Prelude from Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008 on page 28, a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 4.1) of the Prelude from Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 on page 38, a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 6.2) of the Prelude from Suite No. 4 in Eb Major, BWV 1010 on page 65, and a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 7.2) of the Prelude from Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011 on page 80. Out of a total of 46 Figures (and one Appendix) developed by Daniel E. Prindle in "The Form of the Preludes to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites" (2011) there are Reductions of five Motives (Figures 7.1a, 7.1b, 7.1c. 7.1d and 7.1e) in the Prelude to Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012 on page 77, Reductions of Middleground Motives (Figures 4.3 and 4.4) in the Prelude to Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 on page 40 and a Reduction (Figure 4.5) to an Ascending Sequence in the Prelude to Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 on page 42."

suite for unaccompanied cello (2019)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7f5bbehhfstb5vb/cello_suite.pdf?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/7f5bbehhfstb5vb/cello_suite.pdf?dl=0)

(https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/0/9/12090266/p32.png)

From my music score site:

https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/ (https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/)


Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 13, 2020, 01:21:30 PM

(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0962411420_5.jpg)

Roger Reynolds's Kokora is a series of 12 studies for violin, each one has a title indicating the intended expressive effect. They are contrapuntal, and they use microtones, but all the tones have determinate pitch. It's a very fine peace of music, I'd say a masterpiece. Irvine Arditti recorded it twice, but at the moment I'm enjoying the one on the CD above played by the American violin player Mark Menzies - I like Menzies's tone, and his ability to make the etudes flow one into the other.


Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 13, 2020, 01:23:46 PM
Quote from: Leo K. on December 11, 2020, 10:22:34 AM
Interesting thread!

I offer my own solo cello score (never recorded) here with PDF below (not for sale it's free). I think you could call it conceptual art music:


"Out of a total of 46 Figures (and one Appendix) developed by Daniel E. Prindle in "The Form of the Preludes to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites" (2011) there are Figured Bass Reductions (Figures 2.1 and 2.2) of the Prelude from Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 on pages 17 and 20, a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 3.1) of the Prelude from Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008 on page 28, a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 4.1) of the Prelude from Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 on page 38, a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 6.2) of the Prelude from Suite No. 4 in Eb Major, BWV 1010 on page 65, and a Figured Bass Reduction (Figure 7.2) of the Prelude from Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011 on page 80. Out of a total of 46 Figures (and one Appendix) developed by Daniel E. Prindle in "The Form of the Preludes to Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites" (2011) there are Reductions of five Motives (Figures 7.1a, 7.1b, 7.1c. 7.1d and 7.1e) in the Prelude to Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012 on page 77, Reductions of Middleground Motives (Figures 4.3 and 4.4) in the Prelude to Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 on page 40 and a Reduction (Figure 4.5) to an Ascending Sequence in the Prelude to Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 on page 42."

suite for unaccompanied cello (2019)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7f5bbehhfstb5vb/cello_suite.pdf?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/7f5bbehhfstb5vb/cello_suite.pdf?dl=0)

(https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/0/9/12090266/p32.png)

From my music score site:

https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/ (https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/)

That's very kind of you! I shall download it tomorrow, can't wait to hear it.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Leo K. on December 14, 2020, 06:36:05 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on December 13, 2020, 01:23:46 PM
That's very kind of you! I shall download it tomorrow, can't wait to hear it.

Thank you for looking at it! I wish I had a recording but it's a rather new score too.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 24, 2020, 12:21:09 PM
(https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/media/thumbnails/uploads/anton-lukoszevieze-cover_page_image.jpg)

These are 11 free improvisations for solo cello made by Anton Lukoszeviez during the big UK lockdown in March. Very good! Fresh music which stands being listened to many times. Fans of Scelsi cello music should give it a try IMO.

Downloadable from Cafe Oto.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 27, 2020, 01:40:03 PM
https://www.youtube.com/v/vSgb1eP8A24

David Dunn's  Espial (1979) was recorded by a solo violinist performing gestures composed by Dunn over three-and-a-half hours in a harsh California desert environment. The results were then played back in a layering of seven half-hour segments on cassette machines and re-recorded. The essence of the landscape is very present.

I think it's very good! From this CD which is wonderful

(https://www.innova.mu/sites/default/files/albums/508cover.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 28, 2020, 12:26:41 PM
Jennifer Walshe's This is Why People OD on Pills, for double bass

https://vimeo.com/285606060

The score reads as follows

QuoteLearn to skateboard however primitively. Examine and meditate on optimum skating environments, either real or imagined, taking in the macro- and micro- structure of these environments. Go for a walk and imagine being able to skate everything you see -- strrets, roads, walls, trees, curbs, planters, slopes, gardens bins, lamp-posts, footpaths, bushes, cars, signs, windowsills, ramps, shopping trolleys, pools, slides, billboards, roofs, benches cows, handrails, fences, edges, lips, steps, drains, ditches, rims, gutters.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: steve ridgway on December 29, 2020, 05:20:51 AM
So how much newer is this score than Aus Den Sieben Tagen?
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 29, 2020, 05:41:13 AM
The Walshe is 2004, it was a commission by one of my favourite cellists, Anton Lukoszevieze; The Stockhausen is 1968.

Here's the score of the Walshe

QuoteTHIS IS WHY PEOPLE O.D. ON PILLS /AND JUMP FROM THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

This piece is performed by 1-10 performers performing on any instruments (including voice). Each performer prepares and practices their own individual "path" according to the directions given below. The piece consists of the performance of this/these "path(s)." If the piece is performed by a soloist, it should be a minimum duration of 5 minutes long, and is called "THIS IS WHY PEOPLE O.D. ON PILLS."

If the piece is performed by a group, the group should agree on a performance duration (minimum 10 minutes). Each member of the group's path should be a minimum duration of 5 minutes long, and a performer can begin/end their path anywhere within the chosen performance duration. A performance by a group is called "/AND JUMP FROM THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE."


Directions:

1. Learn to skateboard, however primitively. Re-learn your body's weight, muscles, bones, geometry, abilities, flash-points afresh. Meditate on presure, torque, weighht, movement, air, light, space, lines. Focus minutely on surface, micro-surface, bumps, cracks, debris, conrete, asphalt, granite, marble, plastic, wood; "gradients, slopes, verticals, the architectural qualities whatyou skate on, the "wanness of wall." See, smell hear, feel, how your body relates to the board and through it to Space. Try to learn or at least attempt a few tricks. Even if you cannot do the tricks, analyse an understand them in your head and body, the basic concepts, movements, weightings, shifts and throw involved in ollies, grinds, kickflips, aerials, backslides, boardslides, rock'n'rolls, varials (or other tricks, and reombinations of any of them. Feel time compress and expand as you move in and out of these tricks, launch, rise, catch stillness, fall, spin, slide, pivot, leap.

2. Augment this experience by watching skaters visiting skateparks, viewing skateboard photos, videos, looking at skating magazines, books, films, sites. Try to understand and absorb what you see with your body, internalizing these ways of achieving speed, height, weightlessness, skating the paths virtually with full attention.

3. Examine and meditate on optimum skating environments, either real or imagined, taking in the macro- and micro-structure of these environments. Go for a walk and imagine being able to skate everything you see —streets, roads, walls, trees, carbs, planters, slopes, gardens, bins, lamp-posts, footpaths, bushes, cars, signs, window-sills, ramps, shopping trolleys, pools, slides, bollards, roofs, benches, cows, hand-rails, fences, edges, lips, steps, drains, ditches, rims, gutters. Contemplate the ability of skate-boarding to articulate space, find new paths through architecture, fresh uses for it, notice and exploit visibleAnvisible relationships.

4. Compose an imaginary path you would like to skate. This path should push and force you to limits, be rich, beautiful, complicated and stylish, and incorporate some tricks. The path is limited only by your imagination. Internalise this path, skate and inhabit it in terms of body, space and time. Feel space moving around you as you articulate your lines, intersecting, crossing, glancing, spinning away, grabbing at movements and air, smells and sounds.

5. Choose a pitch on your instrument. Skate your imagined path on this pitch. (You may choose to skate the path in slow-motion.) Every micro-detail of the pitch (tuning, timbre, dynamic, envelope, consistency, colour, texture, weight, feel, pressure, clarity, strength) should correspond absolutely to the experience of skating the path in your head. Pay attention to every minute detail, the micro-cartography of the path you are skating, the tiny shifts in muscle, weight, speed, direction. Carve through air in long, sweeping paths with the sound you produce. Reveal and inhabit new spaces, smooth new lines.


What strikes me is the physicality of it -- I haven't seen a score of Aus Den Sieben Tagen? so I don't know if it makes these sorts of demands on the performer -- demands about his body.

(I have some vague memories that there are many "meditation" scores like this -- some fluxus pieces. There's also the Cage Song Books of course.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: steve ridgway on December 29, 2020, 08:22:39 AM
I was just thinking the idea of a "composition" being a set of vague ideas suggesting a mood after which the performers would do their own intuitive things is not no so new. This bit though is a lot more detailed and specifies it's all about modifying a single note, based on the performer's visualisation of a skateboarding experience.

5. Choose a pitch on your instrument. Skate your imagined path on this pitch. (You may choose to skate the path in slow-motion.) Every micro-detail of the pitch (tuning, timbre, dynamic, envelope, consistency, colour, texture, weight, feel, pressure, clarity, strength) should correspond absolutely to the experience of skating the path in your head. Pay attention to every minute detail, the micro-cartography of the path you are skating, the tiny shifts in muscle, weight, speed, direction. Carve through air in long, sweeping paths with the sound you produce. Reveal and inhabit new spaces, smooth new lines.

So the piece is more of a specific set of concepts and rules for the performer to generate their music. Maybe the composer found it too difficult to follow it through themselves and write the notes down?
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 29, 2020, 08:32:11 AM
Or that by just providing the directions you'd encourage the performer to tap into his own creative juices rather than just follow the notes on a score. Disappointing that it's another bloody one note with overtones piece, there are too many of them.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 01, 2021, 04:01:05 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/qb3nZZ0-Ha4&ab_channel=EnsembleMusikfabrik

Simon Steen Anderson, study for string instrument 2 -- here played on a cello with a bit of processing. No-one better at the post-Lachenmann thing than Steen Anderson.

Also worth noting here is his Beside besides, for cello and drum with elastic bands, bowed like a cello

https://www.youtube.com/v/OgZw1ve3H6c&ab_channel=FranzBannwart

Same idea here --

https://www.youtube.com/v/WkvrFShVxg4&ab_channel=FranzBannwart
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on January 02, 2021, 09:08:58 AM
Improv, but interesting new solo bass release from Barry Guy:
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0088479221_16.jpg)
http://nobusinessrecords.com/irvins-comet.html
I'm listening on Bandcamp, https://nobusinessrecords.bandcamp.com/album/irvins-comet
I've become a fan of Guy and own a number of his recordings for larger ensembles. Undecided on purchasing solo recordings, though I enjoyed Fizzles (posted back on p. 1 of thread).
Excellent video of Fizzles part I here (extended techniques beginning at 2:22): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUDwLv_8No8
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 03, 2021, 12:46:17 AM
Yes it's not bad. The place where I have most enjoyed Barry Guy is on this extraordinary improvisation CD

(https://neos-music.com/images/covers-large/NEOS_11306_Orlando_Furioso.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 03, 2021, 02:31:30 AM
A piece by Howard Skempton played by Michael Francis Duch

https://www.youtube.com/v/9vTXhAs7e-U&ab_channel=HaakonWuttudal
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 03, 2021, 06:49:41 AM
(https://img.discogs.com/LmUuJ-d2KYB8eMN-haTohtqn5gI=/fit-in/600x540/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2502384-1287609729.jpeg.jpg)


And following on from that YouTube I've been really enjoying the above all day. The cd includes by far the best performance of music by Christian Wolff that I've ever heard, Duch can find the poetry in the music.  Not just in Wolff, but also in other normally challenging composers like Cardew and Skempton.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 05, 2021, 03:19:45 AM
Liza Lim's notes for Invisibility

QuoteThe most recent work in this line of investigation is a solo cello piece called Invisibility which
also acts as a study piece for an orchestral work (Pearl, Ochre Hair String) that I'm currently
writing. One of things I wanted to explore in this piece for 'cello was to work with an
interactivity at the material level of the instrument – that is, the strings, their resonance
properties and how the strings are set into motion or stopped. Firstly, I retuned the strings so
rather than having the fairly even spread of tension achieved in standard tuning (C-G-D-A),
each string is retuned at a different level of tension, each string has a different kind of 'give' or
resistance. The tuning is B (the lowest string dropped by a semitone), F (the next string
lowered by a tone), the third string stays the same at D and the highest string is radically
detuned down to Dsharp.
As well as these different tensions held in the strings, I employ two types of bows to activate
the strings – a normal bow and then a second bow which I call a 'guiro' bow after the serrated
South American percussion instrument. The bow hair is wrapped around the wood to give an
alternating hair and wood playing surface. The two bows bring different weights and qualities
of greater or lesser friction into the equation of how the instrument is sounded.
From the player's point of view, how it 'feels' under the fingers is quite different – there is
more variation than usual – places of resistance or flow that need to be navigated when
playing the music. This physical set-up foregrounds the material or physical aspect of the
cello – a more interactive playing surface is created where the 'cello is not just an instrument
that is somehow passively acted upon but it has torque, it has lines of forces that directs how
it is to be played. In a real sense, the 'cello also plays the musician and it governs the shaping
of the music sounds in a very direct way.
The Invisibility of the title of the piece is not about silence, for the work is full of sounds.
Rather, as in Grosz' and Deleuze's conception, I'm working with an idea of the invisible or
latent forces of the physical set-up of the instrument. What emerges as the instrument is
sounded in various increasingly rhythmicised ways, is a landscape of unpredictable nicks and
ruptures as different layers of action - speed, tension, pressure of the bows, of the strings -
flow across each other. The composition also works with magnifications of the level of these
disruptions by intensifying various paradoxical combinations - eg: playing a string at a nonharmonic node so that the string vibrates in highly complex ways. The string doesn't settle in
any one vibrational zone but flicks or flickers (shimmers) between states so that what results
is an unpredictable array of different noises and harmonics.
The two kinds of bow used in the piece offer different possibilities of friction, for instance, the
stop/start structure of the serrated bow adds an uneven granular layer of articulation over
every sound. Like the cross-hatched designs or dotting effects of Aboriginal art, the bow
creates a highly mobile sonic surface through which you can hear the outlines of other kinds
of movements and shapes. Moving rapidly between places of relative stability and instability
in terms of how the cello is sounded, the piece shows up patterns of contraction and
expansion, accumulation and dissipation, aligning with forces that are at work within the
instrument-performer complex.

A performance here

https://www.youtube.com/v/6jqNGQfil08&ab_channel=mondayeveningconcert

Here's a bit of Yolngu art showing the cross-hatched designs or dotting effects which, I guess, are reflected in the bow

(https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ray_Norris3/publication/305119337/figure/fig9/AS:635111401852932@1528433766527/A-Yolngu-view-of-the-Milky-Way-a-traditional-bark-painting-by-Yarawu-The-crocodile.png)

Note that she appeals to the feel of the scordatura for the performer, it cannot be heard. Neither can the feel of the twisted bow. It makes me wonder whether this is music designed more to be played than heard.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 09, 2021, 10:19:33 AM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81afBFDFJtL._AC_SL1233_.jpg)

Tod Machover invented the hypercello, which, briefly, uses IT to extend the cello's possibilities to respond to the physical gestures of the player. He wrote Begin Again Again for solo hypercello and Yoyo Ma recorded it here. It is very congenial modernism, and Ma playing it is totally consistent with his conservative but modern tendencies (think  The Silk Road Ensemble.) As far as I know Marr never recorded it, here it's Matt Haimowitz.    This is modernism that your granny will love.

Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 09, 2021, 11:26:18 AM
A gem of a minimal piece for viola here Pierluigi Billone's Iti Ke Mi for solo viola

https://www.youtube.com/v/VeM71TWqD_g&ab_channel=wasteLAndmusic

https://www.pierluigibillone.com/en/texts/iti_ke_mi.html
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 10, 2021, 02:04:23 AM
It's very good to see the Ferneyhough Time and Motion Study II being played, you see the interaction between the electronics and the cello, now I know why it's called Electric Chair Music

https://www.youtube.com/v/8-fCBaYzOxg&ab_channel=mondayeveningconcert
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 17, 2021, 08:32:21 AM
(https://imagery.zoogletools.com/u/61962/2cd415deae6271def8e6bc01a66ffb8481b57f2c/large/343f6a7c-598e-4885-adb1-7be1e29aad9f.jpeg)

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/00/000122000.pdf

https://pemipaull.com/

I came across this CD while exploring recordings of the Ligeti viola sonata. This is the recording my attention the most, for its sobriety and expressiveness. The recording also has a piece inspired by Obrecht written by Michael Finnissy - very well done, a great pleasure to hear.

Pemi Paull is based in Canada and his has quite a few recordings of ensemble music. He's an example of that familiar beast: someone who enjoys early and contemporary music. A great find for me, this one - good sound too.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on February 01, 2021, 08:40:31 PM
https://www.youtube.com/v/Z3soOcrJ6Ic&list=OLAK5uy_naaUXWiJ6GWSy8yAr3-RgLUyKay158vaY&index=5

This is a violin improvisation by Michael Goldstein. The interesting question for me is whether there are any features of the music which make it particularly improvisatory - compared with some of the composed solo music on this thread (eg the cello part of Time and Motion Study.)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on April 07, 2021, 12:58:14 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/Y9a6n-DIJGg

The texture Claus Steffen Mahnkopf's Courier's Tragedy for solo cello  reminds me of parts of Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II - but Ferneyhough benefits from electronics, has more variety, and makes effective use of space and silence. The relentless jumpy articulation of the Marhnkopf is uncomfortable for me, as if something is trying to get free, to become,  it is like Yeats's rough beast

QuoteAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I can't help feel that the Mahnkopf is too long.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: T. D. on May 06, 2021, 02:34:40 PM
New monthly online concert series for solo bass:

https://live.bangonacan.org/black/

First one:
May 7, 2021 at 12 noon ET
PROGRAM
Barney Childs – Sonata for Bass Alone
George Perle – Monody II
William Sydeman – For Double Bass Alone

Have never heard Robt. Black play*. Perle is a "known composer", though I'm not sure how avant-garde. I've heard some Barney Childs on Cold Blue recordings which I like. Know nothing of Wm. Sydeman.

*Added: Just noticed on the "Listening" thread that Black has recorded a Scelsi solo bass album on mode, so he has credentials.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on May 07, 2021, 09:24:32 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on May 06, 2021, 01:30:30 PM
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91z6kDfTCiL._AC_UY218_.jpg)

(This includes the divertimenti - it'll be interesting to see what he makes of them.)

And based on one listening of Divertimento 3 - he really does make them into poetry. This looks like a promising release to me.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 04, 2021, 02:43:20 AM
Really impressed by Gerhard Stäbler's Vom Grund bis zum Scheitel for solo double bass - for the way it integrates conservative and extended techniques and for the sense of forward flow and logic.


(https://is5-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music49/v4/44/b2/37/44b237bd-a8a9-f264-6de4-528017c71166/source/200x200bb.jpg)
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 20, 2021, 09:16:46 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on May 06, 2021, 01:30:30 PM
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91z6kDfTCiL._AC_UY218_.jpg)

(This includes the divertimenti - it'll be interesting to see what he makes of them.)

Definitely a contender for record of the year. It's wonderful! (At least it is this afternoon, after half a bottle of wine.)

Coelocanth, a 1995 piece here on solo violin, is a major piece work.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Artem on June 20, 2021, 10:49:45 AM
I'm gonna wishlist it. Looks interesting.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on July 07, 2021, 08:37:06 AM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71Z%2BoDy-aFL._AC_SL1218_.jpg)

There are two recordings of Kurtag's Hipartita for solo violin, both played by Hiromi Kikuchi, a live one above and a studio one. I like the live most. The work is a rag bag of occasional pieces, but perfectly listenable as a suite -- like Francois Couperin's suites I guess.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 07, 2022, 01:14:51 AM
Barraque sonata for solo violin -- written before the piano sonata and allegedly destroyed, but I guess a score has turned up

https://www.youtube.com/v/_XZKuljM6eQ&ab_channel=antonnewcombe
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on January 07, 2022, 01:16:32 AM
And a new composer to me, but this seems very nice indeed Giselher Klebe's second sonata for solo violin

https://www.youtube.com/v/d6WNTSO1j8I&ab_channel=MonsieurPolifemo
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on April 04, 2022, 04:09:02 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyN2WJzuI6o&t=54s&ab_channel=MichaelHerschMusic

Michael Hersch - "the weather and landscape are on our side" - Miranda Cuckson
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: foxandpeng on April 04, 2022, 01:07:38 PM
Quote from: Mandryka on April 04, 2022, 04:09:02 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyN2WJzuI6o&t=54s&ab_channel=MichaelHerschMusic

Michael Hersch - "the weather and landscape are on our side" - Miranda Cuckson

Hersch is great.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on April 04, 2022, 06:30:23 PM
Quote from: foxandpeng on April 04, 2022, 01:07:38 PM
Hersch is great.

Yes, I am starting to explore his music more seriously now - I've just ordered The Vanishing Pavilions - and I can see he is a really interesting composer. Vanishing Pavilions seems to me similar, at least superficially, to the big three Finnissy piano cycles. Same violence!
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on April 17, 2022, 09:30:04 AM
Quote from: Mandryka on March 14, 2022, 11:30:05 AM
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2617909664_10.jpg)

I just find this too long -- anyone get on with it? The sound is strange, the blurb says "hyper real" -- recorded in one of Hitler's bunkers outside Berlin.


How predictable that I should have written the above a month ago and yet this Easter weekend I can't get enough of it, it seems to me full of violence and melancholy and love, like the world, absolutely beautiful music. I have played it three times today alone. There we are. That's the way it is.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 11, 2022, 01:56:04 PM
 
Quote from: Mandryka on June 11, 2022, 12:14:17 AM
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiOTMzMzQ3MS4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6MzAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE2NTQ3NjIyNTd9)

Bartok solo violin, Ligeti solo Viola and other things.

I don't know why I'm enjoying this so much, but it has certainly touched the spot. In fact I'll go further: I've never enjoyed the Ligeti sonata so much. And the Bartok seemed really special in the third part.  Has to be worth trying!

Booklet here, essay seems not totally without interest

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/34/000150443.pdf


Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on June 15, 2022, 01:23:08 PM
Johannes Schöllhorn caught my attention when I learned he was a pupil of Klaus Huber. This piece for solo cello, Grisaille, bears some resemblance to Huber and late Nono in that there's clearly an interest in using pauses and quietness and dynamic contrasts for dramatic effect. But it has its own voice I think, it's not a pastiche, and I think it's rather good. Quite why it's not commercially released is a mystery - just speaking personally, I find it rather more interesting music than the other singles which Dirk Weigheger released in lockdown, though I couldn't say why exactly. Anyway Schöllhorn is a composer I shall have to explore.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca8qX-p8aYw
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on August 17, 2022, 12:41:35 AM
(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b27301a7d5f2409ac3b814d9cd25)

There are some nice things on this cello Cd by Ulrich Heinen, but what's caught my imagination most are six pieces (figures) by Howard Skempton. Simple music poetically played, and for me rather refreshing in the context of all that baroquery from Bach, and complexity from the other composers -  like a glass of pure spring water.
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on December 10, 2022, 08:12:27 AM
(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b2730e831ebddeaa9079895c8d08)

Really hard not to think of the Diabelli Variations when listening to Rochberg's Capprice Variations, with all its allusions to familiar existing musics, and it's hair pin changes of mood - from sweet and lyrical to spiky. It sounds to me as though there's nothing in the first 17 variations which could not have been written by a inspired and able composer in 1870. I note in passing that it was written in 1970 - I'm not sure how much that matters. And then BANG! You're in some completely alien and dissonant sound world.  The polystylism is really disconcerting, but then Beethoven quotes Mozart from 50 years before and his variations take music into an alien sound world too.


There's just been another recording of the complete set by Leo Marrillier, released last year, with an interesting looking booklet

https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/TR1883.pdf

And Skævred has a web page about the music

https://www.peter-sheppard-skaerved.com/2020/06/george-rochbergs-caprice-variations-a-resource-page-for-the-exhale/
Title: Re: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.
Post by: Mandryka on July 12, 2023, 12:58:56 AM
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41KowPf8+yL._UXNaN_FMjpg_QL85_.jpg)

Very much enjoying Dillon's Parjanya - Vata on this - streaming on Spotify.