GMG Classical Music Forum

I don't know whether this thread is going to go anywhere, but it may, because I'm sure there's a venerable and still very much living style of music  which is all about exploring the ins and outs of one note, one chord, one sound

The title by the way, is taken from The Magic Mountain.

QuoteCan one tell—that is to say, narrate—time, time itself, as such, for its own sake? That would surely be an absurd undertaking. A story which read: "Time passed, it ran on, the time flowed onward" and so forth — no one in his senses could consider that a narrative. It would be as though one held a single note or chord for a whole hour, and called it music.

So what music have you heard which is basically one sound?

I'll post something about Scelsi later.

Quote from: Mandryka on April 25, 2020, 04:40:20 AM
I don't know whether this thread is going to go anywhere, but it may, because I'm sure there's a venerable and still very much living style of music  which is all about exploring the ins and outs of one note, one chord, one sound

The title by the way, is taken from The Magic Mountain.

So what music have you heard which is basically one sound?

I'll post something about Scelsi later.

Reminds me of the old story about the cellist who practiced at home just playing the one and same tone all the time. His wife asked him, why he didn't play different tones. He answered: You see, other cellists play up and down the instrument in their search for the right tone, but I have found it.

Stockhausen's Stimmung comes to mind in this context....

Ah yes, well remembered about Stimmung.

The  fourth movement of Scelsi's 8th piano suite. It's a transitional work, the 8th suite I think, and you wouldn't think the piano was a good instrument for exploring one note -- that's probably why Scelsi gave it up. But in this movement he's explicit about what he's doing -- here's the score

(https://i.ibb.co/nQ1Rhf5/Capture.png)

Like a gong.

And here's a rather good performance I think by Marianne Schroeder

https://www.youtube.com/v/d7RhQ_GOqis

What is it about a gong which is interesting? The combination of a stability in the fundamental note and extreme complexity in the partials I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/v/8Zmbu1doSVc&t=8s

There's a sense in which, listening to that gong, I'm starting to think that all you need is one note, that the music we all know and love from Classic FM went down one road with all that stuff about thematic variation, melody, harmony, resolution, counterpoint. But it's not the only road.

Quote from: Mandryka on April 25, 2020, 04:40:20 AM
So what music have you heard which is basically one sound?

Not classical but electronic music: Autechre - All End

https://www.youtube.com/v/dVjlmLmAi2w

There's of course the version of John Cage's "As Slow as Possible": The performance of the organ version at St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany began in 2001 and is scheduled to have a duration of 639 years, ending in 2640....The performance commenced in the St. Burchardi church on September 5, 2001, with a pause lasting until February 5, 2003. The first chord was then played until July 5, 2005. The chord consisting of A above middle C, C above middle C and the F♯ above that (A4-C5-F♯5, essentially an F♯dim chord) began sounding on January 5, 2006, and concluded on July 5, 2008... [Wiki]

There has to be a lot of this in electronica, but I don't know enough to comment. I wonder about composers like Pauline Oliveros (esp. her Deep Listening Band) and La Monte Young, but ditto.

Quote from: T. D. on April 25, 2020, 01:21:32 PM
There's of course the version of John Cage's "As Slow as Possible": The performance of the organ version at St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany began in 2001 and is scheduled to have a duration of 639 years, ending in 2640....The performance commenced in the St. Burchardi church on September 5, 2001, with a pause lasting until February 5, 2003. The first chord was then played until July 5, 2005. The chord consisting of A above middle C, C above middle C and the F♯ above that (A4-C5-F♯5, essentially an F♯dim chord) began sounding on January 5, 2006, and concluded on July 5, 2008... [Wiki]

I am probably too conservative and reactionary, but what is the "higher" purpose of this?

The second movement of Gloria Coates' "Holographic Universe":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YXusTwfP7w

and other works of hers have examples of her patented extended glisandos

Astronomers say they have heard the sound of a black hole singing. And what it is singing, and perhaps has been singing for more than two billion years, they say, is B flat -- a B flat 57 octaves lower than middle C.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html)

Quote from: T. D. on April 25, 2020, 01:21:32 PM
There's of course the version of John Cage's "As Slow as Possible"

Don't forget that the real meaning or ASLSP is from Finnegan's Wake: Soft morning city! Lsp! I wonder if Cage just made a mistake saying it means as slowly and as softly as possible.

Someone said to me that the score contains some instructions about how it should be played, but I can't find it online. In particular there may be a note asking the performer to make the music in some way reflect or be inspired by the space in which it's played. If that's true, it's interesting.

Solo pour deux, piece by Grisey from the same time period as Partiels.

https://www.youtube.com/v/BExiS0AgQwI

Quote from: SimonNZ on April 25, 2020, 08:21:30 PM
The second movement of Gloria Coates' "Holographic Universe":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YXusTwfP7w

and other works of hers have examples of her patented extended glisandos

Whoa, this is fantastic! Can't believe I wasn't aware of her music, now I've got some exploring to do, thanks!

(https://img.discogs.com/iG0fApgRyJ8r5Qf4appzrFY31Ys=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1672771-1319353120.jpeg.jpg)

Radulescu holds down a chord for 7 clarinets for nearly an hour, on Spotify, Qobuz etc, and for free on soundcloud.

See this from 2002:

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,22661.0.html (https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,22661.0.html)

In more classical surroundings there is the Purcell "Fantasia upon one note" for five viols. But it is only one of the viols which confines itself to that single note.

Quote from: (: premont :) on April 25, 2020, 04:54:51 AM
Reminds me of the old story about the cellist who practiced at home just playing the one and same tone all the time. His wife asked him, why he didn't play different tones. He answered: You see, other cellists play up and down the instrument in their search for the right tone, but I have found it.

I think this joke touches on something fundamental.

When you make a sound with a bow on a cello, the result is complex in overtones and fragile -- it may easily slip from order to chaos at any time. There are things there for musicians to explore.

Radulescu's Der Andere explores these things. I had always thought it was for viola, but I found today that it can work on cello, and hence this post.

(https://i.ndcd.net/13/Item/500/514095.jpg)

I always meant to explore more of Radulescu (not overly impressed by his Piano Concerto but fascinated by his more "spectral"/timbral works), sadly never got around to it. Thanks for the suggestions. There must be many examples from the "spectral school".

Quote from: (: premont :) on April 26, 2020, 04:38:58 AM
In more classical surroundings there is the Purcell "Fantasia upon one note" for five viols. But it is only one of the viols which confines itself to that single note.

That reminds me of long-ago schooldays and singing 2nd alto in the Hallelujah Chorus.

Dumitrescu Holzwege.

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

One note seems to be big in Romania. I think it has something to do with their mountain horns.

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

Tristan Murail's Memoir/Erosion, in which the opening sound of a french horn is decomposed and distorted by the other nine instruments.

Some Romanian horn music. Timbres similar to those in Radulescu

https://www.youtube.com/v/0MzrXd8CUCg

https://www.youtube.com/v/1v7onrjN6RE

Grisey Partiels.  The thing opens with a trombone playing a low note, E. Grisey shoved the sound into his computer, and got all the partials out. And these partials are what the other instruments are all playing (and clearly creating their own partials in so doing!)  This, in a very real way, the music is an analysis of all the sounds contained in that opening E on the trombone.

Schoenberg argued tone colour is composed of two dimensions, pitch and timbre. Melody is a pattern of pitch, he called (the as yet unexplored) analogous pattern of timbre Klangfarbenmelodie.

QuoteThe distinction between tone colour and pitch, as it is usually expressed, I cannot accept without reservations. I think the tone becomes perceptible by virtue of tone colour, of which one dimension is pitch. Tone colour is, thus, the main topic, pitch a subdivision. Now, if it is possible to create patterns out of tone colours that are differentiated according to pitch, patterns we call "melodies," progressions whose coherence evokes an effect analogous to thought processes, then it must also be possible to make such progressions out of the tone colours of the other dimension, out of that which we call simply "tone colour" [timbre], progressions whose relations with one another work with a kind of logic entirely equivalent to that logic which satisfies us in the melody of pitches. That has the appearance of futuristic fantasy and is probably just that. But it is one which, I firmly believe, will be realised.

Scelsi wrote a composition in 1959 called Four Pieces (each one on a single note) -- or Quattri pezzi for short. 26 instruments, each one able to produce microtones. In each piece, the pitch remains constant, the timbre changes, as does the dynamics. In short, it is a study in Klangfarbenmelodie -- Scelsi has outSchoenberged Schoenberg.


https://www.youtube.com/v/MfTjz6emd7c

The fourth of the pieces is, I think, specially impressive, it starts at about 12'20'' on that youtube.

Quote from: Mandryka on April 30, 2020, 08:43:04 AM
Schoenberg argued tone colour is composed of two dimensions, pitch and timbre. Melody is a pattern of pitch, he called (the as yet unexplored) analogous pattern of timbre Klangfarbenmelodie.

Scelsi wrote a composition in 1959 called Four Pieces (each one on a single note) -- or Quattri pezzi for short. 26 instruments, each one able to produce microtones. In each piece, the pitch remains constant, the timbre changes, as does the dynamics. In short, it is a study in Klangfarbenmelodie -- Scelsi has outSchoenberged Schoenberg.


https://www.youtube.com/v/MfTjz6emd7c

The fourth of the pieces is, I think, specially impressive, it starts at about 12'20'' on that youtube.

The Quattro Pezzi blew me away when I first heard it probably close to a year ago now. I've been meaning to check out Scelsi more, but I don't know where to start. Is there a good CD out there that contains this and maybe more of his one-note music?

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41wxCNgvc5L.jpg)
For Scelsi, IMO the 3-disc orchestral/choral set dir. by Wyttenbach on Accord is THE place to start. It DOES have the quattro pezzi (corrected!) but is not a small investment.
I (also) have the latter on an old Hans Zender Series recording, but there may be better available.
(https://img.discogs.com/Kk0PmE2NMGvwcGRBW3B8IrXcSfE=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1089893-1543598120-9404.jpeg.jpg)

Quote from: T. D. on April 30, 2020, 01:07:44 PM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41wxCNgvc5L.jpg)
For Scelsi, IMO the 3-disc orchestral/choral set dir. by Wyttenbach on Accord is THE place to start. Sadly it doesn't have the quattro pezzi.
I have the latter on an old Hans Zender Series recording, but there may be better available.
(https://img.discogs.com/Kk0PmE2NMGvwcGRBW3B8IrXcSfE=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1089893-1543598120-9404.jpeg.jpg)

Little out of my price range for now, but it's on my radar now, thanks. The Zender looks good. Also looking at this on NEOS:

(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/TPYAAOSwZEhcvJIg/s-l1600.jpg)

Anyone ever heard it?

Quote from: T. D. on April 30, 2020, 01:07:44 PM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41wxCNgvc5L.jpg)
For Scelsi, IMO the 3-disc orchestral/choral set dir. by Wyttenbach on Accord is THE place to start. Sadly it doesn't have the quattro pezzi.

My copy has it on CD 2 -- confirmed on discogs. I agree it's good and the Zender's outstanding too.

https://www.discogs.com/Scelsi-J%C3%BCrg-Wyttenbach-Orchestre-De-La-Radio-T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision-Polonaise-De-Cracovie-Ch%C5%93ur-De-La-Philha/release/2732590

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 30, 2020, 01:11:59 PM
Also looking at this on NEOS:

(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/TPYAAOSwZEhcvJIg/s-l1600.jpg)

Anyone ever heard it?

Yes for two minutes, sounded very good.

If you want one note, you should try to hear the trio.

Quote from: Mandryka on April 30, 2020, 01:18:06 PM
My copy has it on CD 2 -- confirmed on discogs. I agree it's good and the Zender's outstanding too.

https://www.discogs.com/Scelsi-J%C3%BCrg-Wyttenbach-Orchestre-De-La-Radio-T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision-Polonaise-De-Cracovie-Ch%C5%93ur-De-La-Philha/release/2732590

Right you are...sorry for the senior moment, I was at work, distracted and didn't see the track listing on the Amazon page.

Quote from: steve ridgway on April 25, 2020, 08:24:30 PM
Astronomers say they have heard the sound of a black hole singing. And what it is singing, and perhaps has been singing for more than two billion years, they say, is B flat -- a B flat 57 octaves lower than middle C.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html)

I found this online which was quite interesting.  Trying to figure out how they take gravitational waves and turn them into sound waves?  And what is a gravitational wave?   :-[  Wish that I understood physics better.   :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IdVyArDlZ4

PD

(https://img.discogs.com/W3Vw8JwK_F5FwaSoEEns0E-gwb0=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-228864-1241965628.jpeg.jpg)

Saturne is a piece of about 40 minutes, busy music mostly, but the last 5 minutes is almost one note, not sustained, almost  in the style of Dumitrescu, Dufourt makes it breath, maybe the breath of Saturn digesting his snack.

(https://www.idixa.net/Imag1/iVoix/goya-SaturneDevorantSonFils.jpg)

https://www.youtube.com/v/dk_2bg3utv8

Georg Frederick Haas Quartet 9. Jack. There's a lot of this stuff about -- I mean overtone based music. It would be "interesting" to compare and contrast it all. Are they all doing much of the same sort of thing, tinkering around at the edges with an idea which is basically limited mileage. Haas is very good I think.

There's a lot of Georg Frederick Haas's quartets on youtube, often with decent sound.

I think Justė Janulytė qualifies here:

https://www.youtube.com/v/a0Pcydv0MuI

(https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/static.mic.lt/media/filer_public/c9/6a/c96a8a58-da35-4c89-a709-2784d415d4ec/juste9terekas.jpg)

Justė Janulytė (born 1982 in Vilnius) studied composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (with Bronius Kutavičius and Osvaldas Balakauskas), Milan "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatoire (Alessandro Solbiati) and in various masterclasses (Luca Francesconi, Helena Tulve etc.).

Janulytė's music has been played in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia, by many Lithuanian performers as well as Teatro La Fenice Symphony (cond. Eliahu Inbal) and Gothenburg Opera Symphony (cond. David Björkman) Orchestras, BBC National Orchestra of Wales (cond. Garry Walker), Polish National Philharmonic Orchestra (cond. Jacek Kaspszyk), Brno Philharmonic (cond. Maciej Tworek) and French Flute Orchestra, Riga Sinfonietta (cond. Normunds Sne), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Ensemble Bit20 (Bergen), Orchestrutopica (Lisbon), Estonian Philharmonic (cond. Paul Hillier), Danish Radio chamber (cond. Fredrik Malmberg), Latvian ''Kamer'', French Sequenza 9.3 and Polish ,,Camerata Silesia" choirs, Quasar (Montreal), Xasax (Paris) and Flotilla (UK) saxophone quartets, cellists Francesco Dillon (IT), Henri Demarquette (FR), Anton Lukoszevieze (UK), flutist Manuel Zurria (IT) and others. Her works were included in the programmes of the Sydney festival, Schleswig-Holstein festival, Venice Biennale, Holland festival (Amsterdam), Warsaw Autumn (PL, 2011, 2012, 2015), Music Gardens (Warsaw), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK, 2008, 2010), SonicA (Glasgow), Maerzmusik (Berlin),  Musica festival (Strasbourg), RomaEuropa, Musikprotokoll im steirischem Herbst (Graz), World New Music Days (2009, 2014), Musicadhoy (Madrid), Vale of Glamorgan Festival in Cardiff (UK), Expositions of New Music, Moravian Autumn (Brno, CZ), Cesis Art Festival (LV, composer in residence 2012), Gaida (Vilnius, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2015) among others.
Justė Janulytė first came into public view in 2004 when her graduation work White music for 15 strings was awarded as the best chamber piece at the competition organized by the Lithuanian Composers' Union. Furthermore, she has been awarded for the best orchestral work (Textile, 2008), the best chamber work (Elongation of Nights, 2010) and the first prize among 2010 Lithuanian pieces for Sandglasses at the same competition. In 2009 Aquarelle for choir won the 1st prize (in the category of composers under 30) at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. Witihin the span of several years her experimental and highly visionary works have earned her international renown and official recognition at home in the form of the Young Artist's Prize awarded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture of 2011. On the 18th of December 2013 her concert installation "Sandglasses" was performed at the Flagey Center, Brussels at the closing event of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Majority of the works by the author, written for 'monochromatic' ensembles (e.g. 24 flutes, 21 string, 16 voices etc.), represent slow and gradual ''thermodynamic'' metamorphoses of texture, timbre, register, articulation and dynamics. While balancing between the aesthetics of minimalism, spectralism and drone music, Justė Janulytė composes acoustic metaphors of optic ideas (Silence of the Falling Snow, 2006; Pendulums, 2011, Observation of Clouds, 2012 etc.) and researches the visual nature of musical phenomena in the works where sound and image are fused together (Breathing Music for string quartet, electronics and kinetic sculptures, 2007; Eclipses for violin, viola, cello, double bass, live electronics and soundproof glass installation, 2007/Integra, Sandglasses for 4 cellos, electronics and installation of video, lights and tulle, 2010/Réseau Varèse).

Since 2006 Janulytė has been teaching a course on contemporary music language at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. In 2011 she was a jury member at the Czech composition competion called NUBERG, organized by the Berg Orchestra in Prague and the guest lecturer at the Nordplus Music Labaratory "Process 2013" in Nida (LT). In 2014 May Janulyte held 3 days composition masterclasses at the Sassari Conservatoire (IT). In 2014 her first portrait double album "Sandglasses" was released by the Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing center, consisting of a DVD with Sandglasses and CD with the most important acoustic works. The composer has also written critics and articles on music. Lives and works in Vilnius and Milan.

https://soundcloud.com/juste-janulyte (https://soundcloud.com/juste-janulyte)

(https://img.discogs.com/QdIH9uMplGsO7BZU9wePJfTkRu8=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-219354-1385229652-4487.jpeg.jpg)

Hafler Trio, Cleave: 9 Great Openings. Rich texture to a drone sounding like a deep deep cello, full of interesting overtones which are explored during the hour of music. This is part of a three hour long triptych - if the other two are as successful as this first one then it's a masterpiece of drone. It's like a force of nature - irresistible and engulfing, yet refined and subtle.

If anyone has explored the music of The Hafler Trio and can point me in the direction of other good things to explore, I'd appreciate it very much.

https://www.youtube.com/v/vLd9L-dpkpA&ab_channel=NonPiano%2FToyPianoWeekend

Mathias Spahlinger's Farben der Frühe is one note for about 10 minutes in the third movement, then it breaks free.

https://www.youtube.com/v/G-JnXRaQS3E&ab_channel=vox_ritualis

In Voice  Piece- One-Note Internal Resonance Investigation, Joan La Barbara  does the usual spectral trick of exploring the overtones of a single note for 15 minutes. Enough already! We've already had a shed load of this sort of thing, there's zero point of any more! But the difference is, Joan La Barbara uses her voice and not  an instrument.

OK, small difference maybe.

Michael Pisaro's Harmony Series is music based on a response to poetry. In No. 17, which has the nickname "Only" the poem in question is Void Only by Kenneth Rexroth

QuoteTime like glass
Space like glass
I sit quiet
Anywhere Anything
Happens
Quiet loud still turbulent
The serpent coils
On itself
All things are translucent
Then transparent
Then gone
Only emptiness
No limits
Only the infinitely faint
Song
Of the coiling mind
Only.

This is Michael Pisaro's score

QuoteIn a large, open space (possibly outdoors).
For a long time.
Sitting quietly.
Listening.
A few times, playing an extremely long, very quiet tone.

I have a recording of it by Sam Sfirri. It was interesting to listen to because, what I didn't realise, though it should have been obvious, is that the ambient noise of the outdoor space is part of the music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRzpvQScE5s

La Monte Young's For Brass - it does make you wonder about the influences between Scelsi and Young. It also makes me wonder what Radigue's Occam series has to offer that's new.

Phill Niblock does drones, he's the drone king, he's written a lot of them too. Here's an example, Disseminate for string quartet.

https://www.youtube.com/v/l7N-vgTarvo

Here's some notes written for the recording

QuoteOriginally written for orchestra, Phill Niblock' Disseminate (1998) was arranged by the composer specifically for the Bozzini Quartet, or rather, for 'multiples' of the Quartet: twenty different tracks are mixed in each piece—twenty different instruments, the equivalent of five string quartets. The music is essentially a work on the shifting nature of overtone patterns that arise from acoustic instruments. As composer Bob Ashley convincingly argued, these pieces inscribe themselves in the "hard-core drone" scene of American electronic music: " Niblock [brings] the orchestra into the electronic world."
For Disseminate, Niblock scored a distinct set of microtonal intervals, and the players are indicated how sharp or flat they should play. But a certain sense of range is given around each chromatic pitch, so that every bow stroke partly determines the microtones. All 20 'instruments' are then recorded to produce the piece. When mixed, the simultaneous microtonal intervals produced by the Bozzini Quartet(s) come together to create massive clouds of extremely rich, beating, and shifting sound. Such a complex signal needs time to unfold, and for the overtone patterns to emerge instrumentalists almost have to display the endurance of electronic instruments, producing long, seamless, sustained tones. As a listener, it is practically impossible to grasp when or how changes in the sound texture actually occur. Our sense of time is confused, and we are drawn deeper into a mode of listening that pays attention to the textural qualities of the "hard-core drone" sound itself."

If you pay attention you realise that it's actually full of changes, some of them dramatic. There are interesting and unexpected harmonies caused by the close, probably microtonally close, tuning of the instruments. It's surprising how well this can work at home.

Charlemagne Palestine (kind of an outsider artist) has at times also been big on drones.

https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/02/charlemagne-palestine-interview
http://www.furious.com/perfect/charlemagnepalestine.html
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/01/charlemagne-palestine-18000-stuffed-animals-ccornuuoorphanossccopiaeeaanorphansshhornoffplentyyy

I once owned his Schlingen-Blängen recording, but didn't hang on to it.
Playing it on Youtube now, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPsuNXO7m0Q , wishing I'd kept the CD!

So far I've held off buying this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monolithic-Undertow-Search-Sonic-Oblivion/dp/1474615236/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Monolithic+Undertow&qid=1615321794&sr=8-1

I feel a bit ambivalent about drone music. I mean, do we really need so much of it?

Quote from: Mandryka on March 09, 2021, 11:31:30 AM
I feel a bit ambivalent about drone music. I mean, do we really need so much of it?

No, I enjoy a certain amount in the mix and prefer earlier works that were groundbreaking at the time to derivatives decades later.

(https://imagescdn.juno.co.uk/300/CS778698-01A-MED.jpg)

https://www.discogs.com/London-Contemporary-Orchestra-Giacinto-Scelsi-String-Trio/release/16244055

I completely missed this when it came out last year - late Scelsi, drone and microtone stuff, so you know the gen, but still . . .  a good example of the gen. 

However I have to say that my first impressions of the performance are not entirely positive, I think that Arditti did a more nuanced and subtle recording of the string trio.

Quote from: Mandryka on May 09, 2021, 07:34:44 AM
(https://imagescdn.juno.co.uk/300/CS778698-01A-MED.jpg)

https://www.discogs.com/London-Contemporary-Orchestra-Giacinto-Scelsi-String-Trio/release/16244055

I completely missed this when it came out last year - late Scelsi, drone and microtone stuff, so you know the gen, but still . . .  a good example of the gen. 

However I have to say that my first impressions of the performance are not entirely positive, I think that Arditti did a more nuanced and subtle recording of the string trio.

Thanks for the report, I don't actually have any recordings of the trio yet.

(https://img.discogs.com/WFq5ASW2rRC88JMueBTnwrNEXhY=/fit-in/589x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-7609400-1445085495-5011.jpeg.jpg)

Listening to this today, La Monte Young's melodic version of the second Chinese dream. It's one note music, and I know, we've heard it all before and what's the point of more of the same. But I do think that somehow La Monte Young has magic powers and can hold down a note for an hour and turn it into music.


It may just be me of course.

Listening to Georg Friedrich Haas's 9th quartet, about 40 minutes of drone and overtone music, it struck me how so much of Haas's music is like Radigue's , Radigue of Trilogie de la Mort - I mean drone and melody created in the distance shimmering quietly and mystically. There are dynamic changes which make it ebb and flow beautifully. And there are events which, in context, appear fairly important - the entry of cello, a modulation, that sort of thing.

I'm not sure if this quartet is designed to be heard with sensory deprivation, i.e. in complete darkness. I read somewhere that it is very composed, as composed as a quartet by Haydn. And that's an interesting move on Haas's part, I think some of his  earlier quartets were more a sketch of ideas for the musicians to play with.

This is a very fine piece of music, and a great performance. It deserves to be more easily available - PM me if you want it. I don't think it has been released commercially and I'm not sure how I got it.

https://www.youtube.com/v/5a8szQyozxs

Liam Carey's yes and no is made up of a single 22 note chord made from a harmonic series on C, by changing the voicing of this chord he makes varied music.

A little bit of thread necromancy, even if I'm not hundred percent sure this live "folk drone" recording qualifies – after all, it's just 43 minutes long.

Pau by France

(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0326083744_16.jpg) (https://standard-in-fi.bandcamp.com/album/pau-lp)

Hurdy-gurdy, double bass, percussion, bliss.

A work for aeolian harp, presumably with some post-processing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghWKx5rMfTI

There are other pieces by the same "group" (Aeolian String Ensemble)

Alvin Lucier, Disappearances for string quartet. Not an hour, but 16+ minutes should get the point across.

Bandcamp audio: https://collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/alvin-lucier-navigations

Youtube video (only half the playing time of the recording; I don't know why):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsTamSLWMXI

Review: https://www.lafolia.com/string-theory-36-predominantly-quartets/

Phill Niblock, kontradictionaries. This is very processed music, and all the better for it IMO. The musicians recorded some sounds, Niblock processed them and made a tape, played it back to the musicians who then added bits. I like it very much, though I'd be hard put to say why I like it, or what I like about it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1TuCXqhuUbA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKe6udcvLhI&ab_channel=LatvianRadioChoir-Topic



In  Rytis Mažulis Ajapajapam for choir and sting quartet, the voices' and strings' sustained tones meld together and soon lose a strong sense of either identity, as focus shifts to tracking the changes in density created by the continual entries for individual singers, which are then lost as they enter the global sound mass. Occasionally, individual voices rise out  of the texture, but then quickly recede; we again perceive the homogenised nature of the pitch clusters.

It's very good.

Quote from: steve ridgway on April 25, 2020, 08:24:30 PM
Astronomers say they have heard the sound of a black hole singing. And what it is singing, and perhaps has been singing for more than two billion years, they say, is B flat -- a B flat 57 octaves lower than middle C.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/science/music-of-the-heavens-turns-out-to-sound-a-lot-like-a-b-flat.html)

This put a grin on my face. To see why, go to 19:35 in the video below:

https://youtu.be/GvWNyM6AzIs