Does anyone know of anything they think is special?
(https://www.propermusic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/770f7f65d519370eea7ae1a9215d2a64/4/2/42238.jpg)
What is a set of variations? I have no idea, presumably there's something constant that's being varied here but it's not audible to me consciously, at a level I can articulate. But Shapey's 21 variations for modern piano do sound amazingly coherent, and interesting, tight music over half an hour. And maybe what is most interesting is that somehow he has managed to produce something in what is, evidently, in an uncompromisingly modernist style and yet is full of consolation, grandeur - romantic in fact. All tones have pitches, all the playing is conventional, the pianist isn't ask to use his voice or body percussion, so it's safe.
It's not really at the cutting edge of today's avant garde at all, which is what this thread is hopefully going to explore. Very nice though and a bit of inspiration to dig a bit deeper into the repertoire for this "challenging" instrument.
This reminds me...
Not new, definitely experimental and improv/free rather than classical, but after Cor Fuhler passed away someone recommended his Stengam for solo (heavily) prepared piano. Title is Magnets spelled backward, which gives an indication. I enjoyed the samples I heard (on US vendor Squidco site), but then forgot. Will have to follow up. This seems to have been released only as a physical CD (Potlatch label in France) and I couldn't find any downloads.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/db/g8/iz6esh8s7g8db_230.jpg)
Stockhausen's Mantra is just a set of variations on a melody (the mantra.) It is for two pianos, the piano tones are passed through a ring modulator which serves to bring out some of their overtones, creating a more varied timbre. There is also some occasional use of little cymbals, and woodblocks which mark the main structural junction - all done by the piano players. And occasionally the musicians have to make a sound with their vocal chords. I love it, I think it is a masterpiece. But it's not really avant garde any more - it's half a century old! Roll over Stockhoven.
(https://www.col-legno.com/pics_db/20237_poppe_cover.jpg)
However IMO Stockhausen is one of the chief influences on the music of today, and I think a good example of his influence here is in Enno Poppe's Rad, also for two piano like keyboards, which produce a piano like sound, this time dissonances are produce by microtones rather than a modulator. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Rad is as systematically composed as Mantra, but I'm not sure.
Anyone know any other avant garde music for two pianos?
This is not a recording but here is a link to the score for my piano sonata (no.2), titled:
"There are examples from John Kirkpatrick's 1975 edition of Charles Ives's Three-Page Sonata for Piano (1949) that are either printed individually or printed alongside examples of Henry Cowell's 1949 and/or Mary Joyce's 1970 editions of Charles Ives's Three-Page Sonata for Piano in order to be compared in regards to "score realization" (Shelton, 1985, p. iii), "formal structures" (Shelton, 1985, p. iv), "serial procedures" (Shelton, 1985, p. v), "melodic analysis" (Shelton, 1985, p. vi), "harmonic analysis" (Shelton, 1985, p. vii) and "aesthetic appreciation" (Shelton, 1985, p. vii) on pages 13, 19-24, 26-31, 35-62, 64-70, 74-75, 77, 78, 81, 85-87, 88, 90, 95, 100-116, 118-120, 124-141, 143-149, 152-153, 156-159 and 167. There are examples from Henry Cowell's 1949 edition of Charles Ives's Three-Page Sonata for Piano (1949) that are either printed individually or printed alongside examples of John Kirkpatrick's 1975 and/or Mary Joyce's 1970 editions of Charles Ives's Three-Page Sonata for Piano in order to be compared in regards to "score realization" (Shelton, 1985, p. iii), "formal structures" (Shelton, 1985, p. iv), "serial procedures" (Shelton, 1985, p. v), "melodic analysis" (Shelton, 1985, p. vi), "harmonic analysis" (Shelton, 1985, p. vii) and "aesthetic appreciation" (Shelton, 1985, p. vii) on pages 13, 19-24, 26-31, 35-45, 47-50, 52-62, 64-65, 67-70, 76, 85-87, 110-111, 113, 118, 127-131, 134-135, 140, 141, 143, 144, 146-147, 149, 152-153, 165 and 167. There are examples from Mary Joyce's 1970 edition of Charles Ives's Three-Page Sonata for Piano (1949) that are printed alongside examples of John Kirkpatrick's 1975 and/or Henry Cowell's 1949 editions of Charles Ives's Three-Page Sonata for Piano in order to be compared in regards to "score realization" (Shelton, 1985, p. iii), "formal structures" (Shelton, 1985, p. iv), "serial procedures" (Shelton, 1985, p. v), "melodic analysis" (Shelton, 1985, p. vi), "harmonic analysis" (Shelton, 1985, p. vii) and "aesthetic appreciation" (Shelton, 1985, p. vii) on pages 20, 26-28, 35, 37-40, 46-47, 51 and 53."
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctxz3i235rymzln/piano_sonata_02_revised.pdf?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctxz3i235rymzln/piano_sonata_02_revised.pdf?dl=0)
(https://toddwinkels.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/0/9/12090266/p119.png)
And there's another piece which seems to me obviously influenced by Mantra - Manoury's Le Temps mode d'emploi for two pianos and real time electronics. Someone told me that Manoury said that he decided to become a composer after hearing Mantra - that's what made me think of it,
(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61ckHZTV9kL._AC_UL600_SR600,600_.jpg)
Just listening to it now after listening to Mantra, it's almost too similar! Is there a mantra, a melody from which all the rest of the composition was derived? Not sure. Stockhausen could be either flattered or angry! But he'll certainly have a feeling of déjà vu.
Quote from: T. D. on December 21, 2020, 05:44:41 AM
This reminds me...
Not new, definitely experimental and improv/free rather than classical, but after Cor Fuhler passed away someone recommended his Stengam for solo (heavily) prepared piano. Title is Magnets spelled backward, which gives an indication. I enjoyed the samples I heard (on US vendor Squidco site), but then forgot. Will have to follow up. This seems to have been released only as a physical CD (Potlatch label in France) and I couldn't find any downloads.
I have managed to get hold of it, let me know if you want the files.
It raises interesting questions because
prima facie it sounds
nothing like a piano, it is just not pianistic in any way shape or form. It sounds much less like a piano than this, for example
https://www.youtube.com/v/sVHl-pqaIYM
Quote from: Mandryka on December 21, 2020, 10:56:06 AM
And there's another piece which seems to me obviously influenced by Mantra - Manoury's Le Temps mode d'emploi for two pianos and real time electronics. Someone told me that Manoury said that he decided to become a composer after hearing Mantra - that's what made me think of it,
(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61ckHZTV9kL._AC_UL600_SR600,600_.jpg)
Just listening to it now after listening to Mantra, it's almost too similar! Is there a mantra, a melody from which all the rest of the composition was derived? Not sure. Stockhausen could be either flattered or angry! But he'll certainly have a feeling of déjà vu.
I think it might be even more similar to Boulez's
sur Incises, though I'm aware comparing Manoury to Boulez is the one of the most predictable critical moves out there.
Well I must admit that I'm finding it a challenge to find music which is for modern piano in its vanilla state, unmodified by electronics or prepared à la Cage, maybe in the world post spectralism the pure tones of the modern piano get in the way of imaginative composing. But it's not as if the overtones aren't there, and there's a technique called sforzato - holding a note down silently while playing another note hard to make the wires released by the first note resonate.
And then, like a miracle I remembered that Stockhausen wrote for the instrument, a sequence of some 20 or more Klavierstücke, some of the later ones exploring resonances and overtones, and today I've been enjoying the most romantic, cantabile, emotional one I know, Sabine Liebner's Klavierstuck X - almost 40 minutes in her hands.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91hCDcLnaLL._AC_SL1429_.jpg)
And what a fabulous writer for modern piano Stockhausen was. Enormous vistas! Rich colours! This piece is, IMO, as much a piano masterpiece as anything by Liszt or Beethoven.
Liebner's is rather unusual, I think, because it's so long, I'll listen to some other performances (and there are many of them) later. One thing I'd say about the Liebner is that it's refined, the loud moments are not violent, they're too subtle for violence. And that it's coherent - nothing seems gratuitous and it's certainly not too long.
Is today's Avant Garde such in the sense that it would shock the Stockhausen et al of fifty years ago with its radical innovations, or has the term just become a genre label for the same sort of music?
Quote from: steve ridgway on December 24, 2020, 04:44:49 AM
Is today's Avant Garde such in the sense that it would shock the Stockhausen et al of fifty years ago with its radical innovations, or has the term just become a genre label for the same sort of music?
Well I think if you look at instruments other than piano then there's lots of boundary pushing exploration and experimentation happening now, think of, just off the top of my head, Beat Furrer or Richard Barrett or Liza Lim or Bernhard Lang. The world is not short of bold and creative composers. It's just that, as far as I can see, inspired new music for vanilla modern piano is quite hard to come by - as is inspired new songs for voice and piano. It's as if the piano is the killer.
But you meantion Stockhausen, and that gives me a problem because I think he was a genius major proportions, and what Furrer etc are doing may well only be possible because of the new ground he broke.
It's remarkable to me how so many fantastic modern composers have been completely defeated by piano. Rihm IMO is an example.
Quote from: Mandryka on December 24, 2020, 05:17:36 AM
It's just that, as far as I can see, inspired new music for vanilla modern piano is quite hard to come by - as is inspired new songs for voice and piano. It's as if the piano is the killer.
I'd think it's very hard to come up with new ideas for vanilla modern piano with its fixed notes. As compared say with all the sounds Ligeti could get out of an organ. I wonder if anyone tried multiple pianos tuned slightly differently so they'd give microtones or beat interference?
Quote from: steve ridgway on December 24, 2020, 05:34:26 AM
I'd think it's very hard to come up with new ideas for vanilla modern piano with its fixed notes. As compared say with all the sounds Ligeti could get out of an organ. I wonder if anyone tried multiple pianos tuned slightly differently so they'd give microtones or beat interference?
I don't know if the pianos in Mathias Spahlinger's Faben Der Frühe are tuned differently - there are seven pianos and it's rather good. Julius Eastman is another one to think about - Crazy Nigger is doable on four pianos, but I don't know about the tuning.
But the pure tones of a modern piano needn't be a limitation because there's sfortato. Once again Stockhausen leads the way in Naturliche Dauern and elsewhere.
By the way, I want to add something. There's no shortage of really large ambitious piano pieces by modern composers, especially British ones. Think Finnissy's History of Photography, Dillon's Book of Elements, Simon Holt's Book of Colours. I'm sure that one day soon I'll listen to them properly, see whether I can make more out of them. Finnissy has done a lot for piano which I like very much (but not so far History of Photography in Sound!)
Radulescu is another I should revisit, and Lachenmann.
Oh OK, I'm glad to hear people are still being creative.
I've been thinking about Morton Feldman, his "For Bunita Marcus" for piano - I haven't hear the whole work but seems beautiful and epic.
Quote from: Leo K. on December 24, 2020, 08:04:54 AM
I've been thinking about Morton Feldman, his "For Bunita Marcus" for piano - I haven't hear the whole work but seems beautiful and epic.
What is it? I mean, is it a set of variations on a theme? It's interesting because its form is so elusive, and yet so graspable.
https://www.youtube.com/v/h1vPotNKDTM&ab_channel=ImriTalgam
Enno Poppe Theme with 840 Variations
Another elusive possible set of variations. I think the theme is just two notes. Is this a step back to the sort of music that Boulez wrote in Notations 1 -- music where the form is indiscernible to the ear even though there is one discernible from analysing the score? One obvious step forward in the Poppe is that there's a bit of relief. But basically Poppe has taken an ultra conservative structure -- theme and variations -- and dragged it kicking and screaming into modernity.
There are lots of them on youtube, the one above seemed to be the most nuanced. Imri Talgam has made a commercial recording of it and he has lots of stuff on youtube -- a pianist to watch maybe.
Cynthia Zaven put an untuned piano on the back of a truck in New Delhi. She then improvised a piano concerto with the noise of the traffic.
https://www.youtube.com/v/8r3FPCrT6uQ&ab_channel=anaisJinn
Simon Steen Anderson's Rendered is for six hands. The video on this production turns it into a circus act.
https://www.youtube.com/v/ztcNP77ADL4&ab_channel=nadarensemble
Everyone knows that aporia is THE central concept in Beckett -
I must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on, as the unnamed in
The Unnamable says. This aporia was a strong influence on the music of Bill Hopkins, a Barraqué student who died young leaving very few works, Evans's Etudes were released by Nicolas Hodges last year. These piano pieces are supposed to be the musical embodiment of the fragility of aporia, every time they appear to be doing something, getting somewhere, making a point, they break off, they fail. A faltering life force, Hodges calls it.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71yEosTBt0L._SL1202_.jpg)
Three books, cahiers for some reason, some rather substantial. The Etudes in the recording are each given a word and together they make a sentence
One may know grief in her white involute portal.
What are we to make of that I wonder. Maybe someone who has the booklet can help cast some light on this mystery. Hodges article on Hopkins, which you can find on Jstor, doesn't seem to make it clear (unless I missed it, I've only skimmed.)
Quote from: Mandryka on January 06, 2021, 10:20:26 AM
Everyone knows that aporia is THE central concept in Beckett - I must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on, as the unnamed in The Unnamable says. This aporia was a strong influence on the music of Bill Hopkins, a Barraqué student who died young leaving very few works, Evans's Etudes were released by Nicolas Hodges last year. These piano pieces are supposed to be the musical embodiment of the fragility of aporia, every time they appear to be doing something, getting somewhere, making a point, they break off, they fail. A faltering life force, Hodges calls it.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71yEosTBt0L._SL1202_.jpg)
Three books, cahiers for some reason, some rather substantial. The Etudes in the recording are each given a word and together they make a sentence
One may know grief in her white involute portal.
What are we to make of that I wonder. Maybe someone who has the booklet can help cast some light on this mystery. Hodges article on Hopkins, which you can find on Jstor, doesn't seem to make it clear (unless I missed it, I've only skimmed.)
I bought this recording not long after release, very early this millennium IIRC, didn't like it but still own it. Sorry, but don't have the patience to wade through that gobbledygook right now (such writing helped turn me away from new music).
I can send you scans if you PM me with delivery instructions.
The point seems to be that, if a performer wants to perform a selection of etudes, she must choose a set whose key words form a syntactically meaningful statement. Further, "...III:VI:VIII constitutes a species of sonata; but only the full cycle (I-IX, or perhaps V-IX...I-IV) can correspond to the composer's special and complete vision of the collection as a single work".
Here's a partial scan; hope it's intelligible...
Thanks, it is indeed intelligible.
I'm taking a break this morning from the cutting edge and going back to old skool Berio - very charming six encores here played in predictably "piano beautiful " way by Lucchesini
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71OMaosMQPL._AC_SL1200_.jpg)
And then to Franco Evangelisti's Proiezioni Sonore as an antidote.
Not really avant garde, but gorgeous I think, and rare -- Hans van Sweeden's Drei Nachtstücke
https://www.youtube.com/v/lbes5tnL90Y&ab_channel=miclu2011
And no less rare, Henri Pousseur's variations, Apostrophe et six réflexions
https://www.youtube.com/v/nL6i6NNVYxo&ab_channel=MarcelCominotto
And another mid century modern, as they say on ebay, and this is another rare gorgeous one, Gennady Banshchikov's Piano Sonata no.3. This is a bit special. Spacious music.
https://www.youtube.com/v/YJzfCCRkRGM&ab_channel=hu
Quote from: Mandryka on January 07, 2021, 12:40:45 AM
Thanks, it is indeed intelligible.
...
Good.
Your post (Bill Hopkins solo piano perf. Nic Hodges) brought back some sad memories. Going back to the days when I was active on rec.music.classical.contemporary (and r.m.c.r.), I believe Nic Hodges mailed me (from overseas!) a free copy of the recording. Super generous, I was extremely grateful. But the music just wasn't to my taste. And not attributable to serialism; I love Barraqué's Piano Sonata, for instance.
Interesting aside: the first piece on the disc,
Sous-Structures, was dedicated to Hopkins's teacher Edmund Rubbra.
Quote from: T. D. on January 07, 2021, 05:08:58 AM
Good.
Your post (Bill Hopkins solo piano perf. Nic Hodges) brought back some sad memories. Going back to the days when I was active on rec.music.classical.contemporary (and r.m.c.r.), I believe Nic Hodges mailed me (from overseas!) a free copy of the recording. Super generous, I was extremely grateful. But the music just wasn't to my taste. And not attributable to serialism; I love Barraqué's Piano Sonata, for instance.
Interesting aside: the first piece on the disc, Sous-Structures, was dedicated to Hopkins's teacher Edmund Rubbra.
I'll be interested to know what you make of Manoury's second sonata that I posted. I think it's probably rather good, not experimental enough for my tastes, but in truth I find the piano sound on youtube starts to wear after about 15 minutes so a long sonata wears out its welcome.
Apparently Hopkins studied with Barraque obviously, Rubra as you say, but also Nono.
Generally I'm not as keen on Nick Hodges as you are, though I certainly prefer him to Ian Pace (but I prefer anyone to Ian Pace!) You know he's just released a Beethoven/Birtwistle CD?
One thing I do think is that all piano music, experimental or not, needs colour and tone. For this reason I'm appreciating Sabine Liebner more and more, despite some quirky interpretation decisions in a rather limited repertoire.
Oh, I didn't post the Manoury! Here
https://www.youtube.com/v/OOg_jIn6S9Y
Quote from: Mandryka on January 07, 2021, 07:52:25 AM
I'll be interested to know what you make of Manoury's first sonata that I posted. I think it's probably rather good, not experimental enough for my tastes, but in truth I find the piano sound on youtube starts to wear after about 15 minutes so a long sonata wears out its welcome.
Apparently Hopkins studied with Barraque obviously, Rubra as you say, but also Nono.
Generally I'm not as keen on Nick Hodges as you are, though I certainly prefer him to Ian Pace (but I prefer anyone to Ian Pace!) You know he's just released a Beethoven/Birtwistle CD?
One thing I do think is that all piano music, experimental or not, needs colour and tone. For this reason I'm appreciating Sabine Liebner more and more, despite some quirky interpretation decisions in a rather limited repertoire.
Thanks. This is my busiest season at work, won't be able to listen carefully for a little while.
I regret saying this, but though I enjoyed online discussions with Nic H., I have not liked his recordings I've heard to date, though it may be repertoire rather than performance related. I know of the recent B / B, don't want to purchase but will look for clips.
Agreed on Ian Pace, prolific (online at least) writer but I wrote him off as a performer after a couple of listens.
Not to stress the negative, but Joanna Macgregor is my pianistic
bête noire; I violently disliked what I heard of her contemporary repertoire, can't speak of her standard repertoire performances but have no desire to listen.
Will have to explore Liebner, she seems to record mostly on Wergo which is not a convenient (i.e. inexpensive) label for me.
[Added] On a first/distracted Youtube listen, the Manoury sonata is impressive. Further listening slated.
Now here's a homage to Beethoven, Daniel Moreira's Ludvan ven Beethowig first on two toy pianos
https://www.youtube.com/v/Zvz0FZDzddU&ab_channel=DanielMoreira
And a version for a piece of furniture (less interesting, obvs.)
https://soundcloud.com/daniel_moreira_composer/complete-track-rhythmic-study
(https://www.forcedexposure.com/App_Themes/Default/Images/product_images/close_up/s/SR352CD_CU.jpg)
Stefan Prins's Etude Interieure is for piano. Inside of a piano, the piano is basically used as a resonator, marbles used to attack the strings inside, keys are not used at all - hence interieure. And marbles. Really nice on the above CD which is streaming everywhere. But unfortunately no video of a performance that I can find -- which is a shame because I'm sure it would be bizarre and fun to watch those marbles roll.
Quote from: T. D. on January 07, 2021, 08:17:15 AM
Thanks. This is my busiest season at work, won't be able to listen carefully for a little while.
I regret saying this, but though I enjoyed online discussions with Nic H., I have not liked his recordings I've heard to date, though it may be repertoire rather than performance related. I know of the recent B / B, don't want to purchase but will look for clips.
Agreed on Ian Pace, prolific (online at least) writer but I wrote him off as a performer after a couple of listens.
Not to stress the negative, but Joanna Macgregor is my pianistic bête noire; I violently disliked what I heard of her contemporary repertoire, can't speak of her standard repertoire performances but have no desire to listen.
Will have to explore Liebner, she seems to record mostly on Wergo which is not a convenient (i.e. inexpensive) label for me.
[Added] On a first/distracted Youtube listen, the Manoury sonata is impressive. Further listening slated.
I just found myself enjoying quite a long solo piano piece on this, Folklore II
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiNzk1NDE4OS4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6MzAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE0MDE5ODI1NzN9)
And I said to myself that maybe I'd been unfair about Pace. But no, Finnissy's playing. It's worth catching when you're in the mood for that sort of thing. It's such a shame that Finnissy didn't play any of The History of Photography.
Over lunch today I played a friend who knows nothing about classical music Boulez's second sonata. She commented that parts of it sound like the free improvisations of Cecil Taylor. And here they are and they are rather good, even the "passagework" is thrilling!
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3486018489_5.jpg)
I can't say that anything I'm hearing reminds me of Boulez though!
What happens in music like this is interesting. It's an outpouring from the pianist. Somehow the pianist's burning intensity is communicated through the music. This is mostly through playing fast and playing quite brutally. It is not unlike a lot of mainstream classical music in that respect - visceral Beethoven like the Grosse Fugue is the obvious thing, except it's nothing like a fugue! Maybe the Schumann toccata - but it's much better than that! Richard Barrett once mentioned it positively and it's very much like stuff he has done - a lot of notes!
If only I could find someone who plays the Boulez sonata like that!
(https://img.discogs.com/SUoUcY4c3mJNITRoader3TlA5ys=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-12348619-1533440349-6683.jpeg.jpg)
Philp Manoury's essay on the origin of his first piano sonata
QuoteSTROLLING IN THE CITY WITH MUSIC IN THE HEAD.
Prague (, October 2001. Nocturnal walks in the old quarter of Mala Strana. Everything is dark. One edifice seems embedded in the next. To the left, a lane running into a square. From there. a staircase leads to a street t er-head that skins a group of houses. I have e no sense of direction. Nor do I have a map. This route does not seem to he taking me anywhere. But what do I know? Perhaps it suffices to continue walking a few metres more to arrive at a spot where I'll have a view of the whole. After a moment, in the distance I make out a halo of lights shrouded in fog. That seems like a possible goal to me. At one barely distinguishes the new colours in which this city is decked out. For me, Prague was old black-and-white photos dating from before the previous century. A silent, black city.
My head does not stop resonating with a haunting musical motif. Although it breaks off long enough for me to conteplate an ornate facade, it reappears imperturbably at the spot where it left off. It is not, strictly-speaking, a theme but rather a series of harmonies. After a few hesitations, I identify it: it comes from the Liszt Sonata. Whilst continuing my nocturnal stroll — and as if to free myself from this sound obsession I mentally run through this whole sonata from the very beginning. I then give myself over to one of my faourite pastimes: synchronising in my memory the sounds and images that I perceived, as if having to put together a film score. It is a matter. for example. of reconstructing what 1 had before my eves when I heard the descending scales of the beginning and evaluating the distance covered during thew whole exposition of the first theme, or else observing the street I had just walked down and remembering the fragment of music that accompanied this journey. The stairs were in D major, the large house with yellow walls was decorated with trills'... This experience always leads to the same observation: inevitably, the two times arc not synchronised. The sound time and the visual time are governed by two distinct clocks. There remains only a face sculpted in a wall that was watching me when I again arrived at this harmonic series with which I continue to struggle.
During this mental distraction, I did not however stop walking. I must have gone past that square bathed in the pale light of street lamps. I must have crossed three or four small intersections, perhaps even more. This city is one that hides another. I am as lost in that quarter as in the sonata. Only chance can put me back on the road home. But it is too soon for that. I am between the Sonata and the city.
I succeed in ridding myself of that harmonic sequence in the most expeditious way by going straight to the fugue. Mentally, I run through it from start to finish. It is filled with promises. The contrapuntal texture comes at just the right moment to give new constructive momentum. Everything in it fits together and is linked in an extremely organic drive. The two subjects that were clashing since the beginning of the work are henceforth meant to get on with each other. But. like every other time I listen to it, the same question returns: why did Liszt interrupt it so soon? What was being organised in such an obvious way, in a construction that seemed to renew itself at every instant, now makes for more or less heroic episodes of virtuosity. That produces a certain effect, but it has always given me the impression of a machine turning without gripping, This fugue barely exceeds two minutes! Why not have repeated it further on? Did Liszt lack technique? Did the rigour of the writing bore him? For me, these questions are still unanswered at the moment I glimpse the outcome of my walk. I seemed to have already seen this elevated portico between two houses. Now I've retraced my steps! In this sense, the street does not at all resemble what I had seen the first time. How to be sure of my memory? Perhaps it is another street with two identical bridges built by the same architect. The further I plunge into the city. the more the images are superimposed in my mind. I notice that I had not paid the slightest attention to the few persons I had encountered. I remained blind and deaf between stone and sound. I go back to try to again see the perspective of this series of buildings, which, the first time. had certainly not escaped my notice. This time. I have proof. I return to the same place, and yet it is not the same. I see the same houses, but everything seems new. Between these two strollsin the same street, a quantity of places has filed past my eves. One form disappeared and was followed by others, then the first returned, but backwards.
That makes me think irremediably of musical forms. This time, of Berg. The retrograde motion of Act II of Lulu. The music starts over again. descending, returning to the same sound landscapes that had initially been perceived as rising, but in reverse order; or else the delayed forms that Berg adopts for Act I. when the exposition and development of a sonata are distributed in non-concomitant moments, in two different scenes. Since I've been walking. it might well he that I've passed the same place several times with out noticing. On the way home. I stop on the Carolus Bridge from which I contemplate the heights of the Lema quarter where I had lived a few days previous summer, There a large pendulum marks a time devoid of meaning where, in the past. the immense statue of Stalin had stood. Leaving the bridge. a discotheque down below is spewing forth the final effluvia of a music that is nonetheless powerless to kill the silence. Heading towards my residence. I begin to elaborate the plan of my new composition.
Upon returning to Paris. at the end of the month, after much trial and error and several pages of sketches, I finally orient the work towards what will be its definitive form. Yet this form will evolve continually up until the end of the composition in February 2002. The set of themes is partially derived from diverse materials that I had developed for my opera K. Here the elements spread out round an empty centre, made up of a vast silence, at the end of which all the music makes the reverse itinerary. A retrograde: way in which one comes back on the same forms taken up again where I had abandoned them but following an itinerary strewn with false symmetries. Six levels of structuring. including two fugues, three toccatas and six melodic meditations represent the sound landscapes on which one comes back with entrance and exit points, which are different every time. The fugues, interrupted as in Liszt, reappear according to the principle of delayed forms, The toccatas construct and deconstruct levels of harmonic resonance. The melodic meditations are moments of metamorphosis: an element embeds itself in another until it supplants it.
I gave this abstract construction the title La Ville (The City.), with the subtitle (...first sonata...)'. My stroll in that old quarter of Prague, the memory of the Liszt Sonata and Bergian forms were the preambles.
The City is dedicated to Jean-Francois Heisser, who gave the first performance at the 'Piano aux Jacobins' festival in Toulouse (which had commissioned the work ). on 13 September 2002.
Philippe Manoury Paris. February 2004
Quote from: Mandryka on January 28, 2021, 12:15:09 AM
(https://img.discogs.com/SUoUcY4c3mJNITRoader3TlA5ys=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-12348619-1533440349-6683.jpeg.jpg)
Philp Manoury's essay on the origin of his first piano sonata
I have that CD, and remember enjoying the piece, but must revisit it soon.
Quote from: ritter on January 28, 2021, 01:05:48 AM
I have that CD, and remember enjoying the piece, but must revisit it soon.
He has a second sonata, which is on YouTube, also well worth hearing.
TD -- do you have the booklet for this?
(https://img.discogs.com/GC494z43DxOE1dnpmh3Up0VlVwM=/fit-in/600x526/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5411033-1392710035-8395.jpeg.jpg)
Quote from: Mandryka on January 29, 2021, 11:31:17 AM
TD -- do you have the booklet for this?
(https://img.discogs.com/GC494z43DxOE1dnpmh3Up0VlVwM=/fit-in/600x526/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5411033-1392710035-8395.jpeg.jpg)
No, sorry. After being less than enamored of a couple of Nic Hodges's recordings (as mentioned
above in some other thread), I haven't made any more purchases.
Quote from: T. D. on January 29, 2021, 11:54:10 AM
No, sorry. After being less than enamored of a couple of Nic Hodges's recordings (as mentioned above in some other thread), I haven't made any more purchases.
Yes, Redgate is Ferneyhough-esque.
Quote from: Mandryka on January 29, 2021, 11:59:10 AM
Yes, Redgate is Ferneyhough-esque.
Well, that'd explain it. ;) Nothing against New Complexity, I heard a few pieces I like (for instance
La Chute d'Icare and
Lemma-Icon-Epigram by Ferneyhough,
Spleen by Dillon), but far more that weren't to my taste, so I stopped exploring the field. So much music, so little time...
https://www.youtube.com/v/26Zj_dVONgs
Rain piece for three pianos, Peter Ablinger, like it, don't know how it's made, presumably a transcription of rain. On this CD
(https://www.soundohm.com/data/products/020/peter-ablinger-regenstucke-vol-1.jpg)
Quote from: Mandryka on December 21, 2020, 08:16:08 AM
Stockhausen's Mantra is just a set of variations on a melody (the mantra.) It is for two pianos, the piano tones are passed through a ring modulator which serves to bring out some of their overtones, creating a more varied timbre. There is also some occasional use of little cymbals, and woodblocks which mark the main structural junction - all done by the piano players. And occasionally the musicians have to make a sound with their vocal chords. I love it, I think it is a masterpiece. But it's not really avant garde any more - it's half a century old! Roll over Stockhoven.
Glad to see a mention of
Mantra. I find it a lot more comprehensible than other Stockhausen I've listened to. Almost catchy, a bit jazzy. I've got the Naxos recording and I'm listening to it right now!
Quote
(https://www.col-legno.com/pics_db/20237_poppe_cover.jpg)
That's a hell of a picture. Is that supposed to be Enno Poppe?
https://www.youtube.com/v/jC9Qr29IrsU&ab_channel=ccrmalite1
In Part A Alvin Lucier's Nothing is Real, for piano, amplified teapot, tape recorder and miniature sound system. the pianist plays some familiar tunes, which are recorded. In Part B the recording is played back through a teapot, and the pianist opens and closes the lid so the sound escapes like steam. It is gorgeous.
Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on February 12, 2021, 01:19:07 PM
Glad to see a mention of Mantra. I find it a lot more comprehensible than other Stockhausen I've listened to. Almost catchy, a bit jazzy. I've got the Naxos recording and I'm listening to it right now!
That's a hell of a picture. Is that supposed to be Enno Poppe?
Have a listen to his lectures on it on youtube.
Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on February 12, 2021, 01:19:07 PM
That's a hell of a picture. Is that supposed to be Enno Poppe?
Booklet doesn't say.
(https://www.jazzmessengers.com/46686-large_default/christopher-fox-music-for-piano.jpg)
This expensive, hard to find CD from a relatively unknown composer and a relatively unknown jazz piano player is well worth the pain of purchasing it for the sound. The piano is like, really here! Both in terms of music and playing it's the most enjoyable for me by far of any piano cd of Fox's music.
Christopher Fox is a musician with a cult following. There's even a festschrift for him. It is true that his minimal, restrained music though initially underwhelming has really gotten under my skin. One of the long pieces on this CD, The Calm of the Mountains, is the closest thing I've heard to music directly influenced by The Well Tuned Piano - it's only 14 minutes though! So that must show something - not sure what it shows, but it shows something.
Quote from: Mandryka on February 14, 2021, 04:02:37 AM
(https://www.jazzmessengers.com/46686-large_default/christopher-fox-music-for-piano.jpg)
This expensive, hard to find CD from a relatively unknown composer and a relatively unknown jazz piano player is well worth the pain of purchasing it for the sound. The piano is like, really here! Both in terms of music and playing it's the most enjoyable for me by far of any piano cd of Fox's music.
Christopher Fox is a musician with a cult following. There's even a festschrift for him. It is true that his minimal, restrained music though initially underwhelming has really gotten under my skin. One of the long pieces on this CD, The Calm of the Mountains, is the closest thing I've heard to music directly influenced by The Well Tuned Piano - it's only 14 minutes though! So that must show something - not sure what it shows, but it shows something.
John Snijders? Relatively unknown jazz pianist?
He's recorded with the relatively well-known (NL modern classical) Ives ensemble, I have his
For John Cage recording.
Stuff on discogs looks "classical" to me: https://www.discogs.com/artist/847140-John-Snijders
And USA dealer Squidco offers the physical CD (I think ezz-thetics is the successor label to Hatology) on discogs at their standard price, US$ 17.95 not really expensive for such things.
Quote from: T. D. on February 14, 2021, 04:52:10 AM
John Snijders? Relatively unknown jazz pianist?
He's recorded with the relatively well-known (NL modern classical) Ives ensemble, I have his For John Cage recording.
Stuff on discogs looks "classical" to me: https://www.discogs.com/artist/847140-John-Snijders
And USA dealer Squidco offers the physical CD (I think ezz-thetics is the successor label to Hatology) on discogs at their standard price, US$ 17.95 not really expensive for such things.
Just testing to see if anyone was reading.
It's difficult to get in the UK, you have to pay to get it imported from Holland, or pay a premium to Amazon, odd given that Fox is based in the UK I think.
More Snijders credits:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/847140-John-Snijders?type=Credits&subtype=Instruments-Performance&filter_anv=0
He's also performed with the Nieuw Ensemble and Schönberg Ensemble.
Very good and well recorded performance of Alvin Curran's Inner Cities 9 by its dedicatee here. Enjoyed it very much. I think it has what Stockhausen called Moment Form.
(https://assets.boomkat.com/spree/products/587834/product/193483694245.jpg)
and while we're talking Alvin Curran, there's an extraordinary long performance of For Cornelius by Kees Wieringa here , not sure if it's really successful
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41bvpG91VyL._SS500_.jpg)
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiODExMjU5Ny4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE1Mjk5OTQ4MTh9)
There are some incredible, astonishing, things on this one -- the best new discovery for a long time. Traces for piano and live electronics, Fantasy for piano, Less than Two. This is a magnificent album.
(https://d42bo2445p9pu.cloudfront.net/assets/uploads/2017/03/14005137/cover77501.jpg)
This is, IMO, a major, serious, important contribution to "traditional" piano music. What I mean by traditional is that it's using techniques which are basically those found in Liszt and Beethoven and Debussy - the piano player does not wear maracas on his wrists or gloves on his hand or sing, he doesn't play with his elbows or stroke the insides of the instrument, there's no electronics.
Listening to the whole thing over the past few weeks it's clear to me that expressively this is a match for the greatest cycles of piano music.
But there's a huge problem which, I think, is preventing its acknowledgement for the work of genius it is. You can only hear it through Ian Pace's performance with sound which is, in my opinion, poor. Poor dynamic range, poor capture of timbre and attack - poor in all the things which matter for piano. The sound is dead.
And this shows how good Ian Pace can sound when he's well recorded -- I'm talking about the seven Dusapin etudes
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/411hmjoSnDL._SY355_.jpg)
There's another recording of these agreeable pieces, by Vanessa Wagner -- I much prefer Pace in every important way: sensitivity to nuance and quality of tone. Pace can come up with the goods sometimes.
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2004117285_16.jpg)
More from Nicolas Horvath, who was the pianist in Alvin Lucier's Music for Piano XL I have enjoyed so much. This is in the same vein, but if anything even more interesting. Denis Johnson's November was a big inspiration for La Monte Young when he composed The Well Tuned Piano. Here it's enhanced by a moody electronic background, with a piano part (which sounds to me as though it's sometimes been processed in some way) in counterpoint. Like it!
November has been recorded before, by Jeroan van Veen, and I've just found a recording by R Lee Andrew which I'll try to hear soon.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61GR1e47kcL._SL1324_.jpg)
I've got it now, and it turns out to be about as long as The Well Tuned Piano :o
Very good essay by Kyle Gann on it -- and it also makes sense of the word "deconstructed" in the title of the Lustmord CD
https://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/dennis-johnson-november-2
(https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0001/992/MI0001992955.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
James Tenney's Bridge is for two pianos, eight hands. The pianos are tuned in a nonstandard way. It was, I think, composed partly using a total serialist type procedure with some choices generated by random processes. It is in two parts, the second is over 20 minutes long, and it is very fine indeed, beautiful music.
What about Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies played by Fredrick Ullen. I've only had time to listen to a few but found them interesting.
Quote from: Hobby on March 07, 2021, 07:15:20 AM
What about Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies played by Fredrick Ullen. I've only had time to listen to a few but found them interesting.
I've never heard them, but I just sampled one. It made me think that you may enjoy this
(https://d24jnm9llkb1ub.cloudfront.net/icpn/7318591593942/7318591593942-cover-zoom.jpg)
I had bookmarked Trinity but hadn't yet sampled. Thanks.
Quote from: Hobby on March 07, 2021, 01:35:49 PM
I had bookmarked Trinity but hadn't yet sampled. Thanks.
i listened to it again today. I think it's fine music, expressive and imaginative, but the composer, Flynn, has probably missed the boat, he's a footnote in a Ph.D. at best, a brief mention every ten years on a social media site for nerds. Is it true that the cream always rises? I don't think so.
Suddenly I find myself really enjoying Mark Andre's piano music, I guess like everything, the music has to match your mood if you're going to appreciate it. A debt to Stockhausen seems possible, on the basis of very superficial listening to both composers!
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiODAzMjA5NC4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE1MjUwODAxMTR9)
Tom Johnson: An Hour for Piano
by Kai Schumacher
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2686827905_5.jpg) I don't know. Am I in the right place?
Quote from: Mandryka on February 18, 2021, 08:54:18 AM
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiODExMjU5Ny4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE1Mjk5OTQ4MTh9)
There are some incredible, astonishing, things on this one -- the best new discovery for a long time. Traces for piano and live electronics, Fantasy for piano, Less than Two. This is a magnificent album.
Returning to this this morning I feel exactly the same way, this is one of the most interesting and stimulating piano recordings I know.
Quote from: milk on April 04, 2021, 07:32:54 AM
Tom Johnson: An Hour for Piano
by Kai Schumacher
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2686827905_5.jpg) I don't know. Am I in the right place?
Some might quibble with calling a "minimalist" work avant-garde, but I see no problem. Especially since Rzewski recorded the piece.
(https://img.discogs.com/jTRSsCxf5awWNOlmnQKfVqoNGCo=/fit-in/400x396/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-10611883-1500925382-3615.jpeg.jpg)
This CD features quite a long and exploratory piece of music called Beginners Mind, I have to say that it's one of the more interesting examples of piano music I've ever heard, a systematic exploration of a range of styles. Ian Pace is in fine fettle for it, and well recorded too. Zimmermann is, I think, a good composer - in a Howard Skempton/Laurence Crane sort of way.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 03, 2021, 01:11:12 PM
(https://storage.highresaudio.com/2021/04/14/22ukeb-stockhause-preview-m3.jpg)
Sensual performance well recorded - possibly the best new release of 2021 and it's only the start of May.
It is because of threads like this that I think that this is the best classical music forum I have participated in. It is very enlightening.
I have participated in other forums where threads like this were taken over and ruined by people who hated avant garde music.
(https://is5-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music118/v4/93/9e/7c/939e7cab-1214-3508-3494-0afde3fb8d2e/cover.jpg/1200x1200bf-60.jpg)
I discovered this CD and the piano player through exploring performances of Sciarrino's Perdute in un cità d'acque. I thought Stafano Malferrari moved it forward really skilfully, it caught my attention in a positive way. I then went on to enjoy his way with Danatoni's Françoises Variationen (why the mixture of French and German? Does anyone know?)
There seem to be three sets of the Donatoni variations by the way - so this must be a significant piece in his oeuvre.
Anyway, he's a musician for me to follow. And the experience made me realise that I know so little of what's happening with music in Italy today.
Quote from: arpeggio on May 06, 2021, 06:10:58 PM
I have participated in other forums where threads like this were taken over and ruined by people who hated avant garde music.
It is not fair to say that one hates avant-garde music. Such people should be moderated. It must be sufficient to state that one is not attracted to it
Mandryka, do you recall the Fluxus festival in Copenhagen somewhere in the 1960es (I only saw it on TV) where David Tudor interrupted his playing and then with an ax shattered the piano completely. This is performance, but is it art, and if yes then why?
Quote from: (: premont :) on May 09, 2021, 08:03:05 AM
Mandryka, do you recall the Fluxus festival in Copenhagen somewhere in the 1960es (I only saw it on TV) where David Tudor interrupted his playing and then with an ax shattered the piano completely. This is performance, but is it art, and if yes then why?
i don't know how to answer the question.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 09, 2021, 08:04:36 AM
i don't know how to answer the question.
Nor do I. This is why I asked you. :)
Quote from: Mandryka on May 03, 2021, 08:27:57 AM
(https://img.discogs.com/jTRSsCxf5awWNOlmnQKfVqoNGCo=/fit-in/400x396/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-10611883-1500925382-3615.jpeg.jpg)
This CD features quite a long and exploratory piece of music called Beginners Mind, I have to say that it's one of the more interesting examples of piano music I've ever heard, a systematic exploration of a range of styles. Ian Pace is in fine fettle for it, and well recorded too. Zimmermann is, I think, a good composer - in a Howard Skempton/Laurence Crane sort of way.
Everybody who loves life and poetry should take Herbert Henck's recording of Walter Zimmermann's Beginner's Mind forthwith.
https://soundcloud.com/user-985460328/walter-zimmermann-beginners
Quote from: (: premont :) on May 09, 2021, 08:06:34 AM
Nor do I. This is why I asked you. :)
Did you get Yasmina Reza's play
Art in Denmark?
https://vimeo.com/6789494
Quote from: Mandryka on May 09, 2021, 08:09:45 AM
Did you get Yasmina Reza's play Art in Denmark?
https://vimeo.com/6789494
Not that I know.
Quote from: (: premont :) on May 09, 2021, 07:58:44 AM
It is not fair to say that one hates avant-garde music. Such people should be moderated. It must be sufficient to state that one is not attracted to it
I think I can say this in this forum without getting into trouble.
There are many contemporary and avant garde composers I do no understand. For example I do no get Stockhausen. That is just my opinion. And an opinion is like a rectum. Everybody has one. I know that we have many members who follow Stockhausen. They really do not care what my opinion is of Stockhausen, so why bother to mention it. Who knows. Some day I may run into a Stockhausen that I like.
Most want to know about the music we like and do not care about the music we dislike.
Quote from: arpeggio on May 09, 2021, 04:19:05 PM
Some day I may run into a Stockhausen that I like.
It's possible as his works have varied across the years, some were thoroughly composed while others were just suggestions to the performers.
(https://img.discogs.com/rp-IO7OtqYwO_T1CK3I-jiL97es=/fit-in/500x494/filters:strip_icc():format(webp):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-9583016-1483136206-7162.jpeg.jpg)
Rytis Mazulis uses a computer to compose and then to perform his piano music. I know half of you won't believe me, but it is thrilling stuff: brutal, fast beyond the limits of what mortals alone can do. This is piano music for the Merzbau fraternity.
The title is interesting. Twittering Machine could refer to Twitter, the frantic and unreasonable plethora of tweets. It could also refer to Paul Klee's extraordinary painting of the same name.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Die_Zwitscher-Maschine_%28Twittering_Machine%29.jpg)
(https://www.propermusic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/770f7f65d519370eea7ae1a9215d2a64/1/7/179.jpg)
There's a piano piece here, Der Schattenspiel by G F Haas, it's very good, it has caught my interest.
Sorry if slightly OT, but here's a funny jazz story (emphasis and [...] added):
...But there was one Blue Note Pete La Roca album, Basra. Steve Kuhn [the pianist on Basra] is a wonderful pianist who played with Pete in John Coltrane's tremendous band with Steve Davis on bass. I saw that quartet often at the Jazz Gallery. Eventually Steve, Pete and I played a lot together and made a few records. Three Waves was Kuhn's trio date, while Art Farmer's Sing Me Softly of the Blues has a wonderful rendition of the Carla Bley title track. But the record most people know today is Basra.
...
"One of the tunes on Basra was 'Lazy Afternoon,' a tender ballad. We were in full flight, mid-take, with our eyes closed, when Kuhn reached inside the piano to pluck a chord. There were immediate loud and abrupt noises over the P.A. Rudy [legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder] came running out to the room in the middle of the take and angrily told Kuhn, 'If you touch those strings again, this date is over.' We were all sitting there pinned to our seats with our eyes bugged out.
...
https://jazztimes.com/features/columns/steve-swallow-pete-la-roca/
Quote from: T. D. on July 06, 2021, 06:38:23 AM
Sorry if slightly OT, but here's a funny jazz story (emphasis and [...] added):
...But there was one Blue Note Pete La Roca album, Basra. Steve Kuhn [the pianist on Basra] is a wonderful pianist who played with Pete in John Coltrane's tremendous band with Steve Davis on bass. I saw that quartet often at the Jazz Gallery. Eventually Steve, Pete and I played a lot together and made a few records. Three Waves was Kuhn's trio date, while Art Farmer's Sing Me Softly of the Blues has a wonderful rendition of the Carla Bley title track. But the record most people know today is Basra.
...
"One of the tunes on Basra was 'Lazy Afternoon,' a tender ballad. We were in full flight, mid-take, with our eyes closed, when Kuhn reached inside the piano to pluck a chord. There were immediate loud and abrupt noises over the P.A. Rudy [legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder] came running out to the room in the middle of the take and angrily told Kuhn, 'If you touch those strings again, this date is over.' We were all sitting there pinned to our seats with our eyes bugged out.
...
https://jazztimes.com/features/columns/steve-swallow-pete-la-roca/
Great story. Thanks, T.D.
I remember also once a jazz connoisseur told some stuff about how Alfred Lion was not really a nice person... (I forgot the details)
The guys weren't as progressive as we might imagine.
Anyway, I love this album,
Basra.
And
Sing Me Softly of the Blues is my favorite Art Farmer's album.
Quote from: T. D. on July 06, 2021, 06:38:23 AM
Sorry if slightly OT, but here's a funny jazz story (emphasis and [...] added):
...But there was one Blue Note Pete La Roca album, Basra. Steve Kuhn [the pianist on Basra] is a wonderful pianist who played with Pete in John Coltrane's tremendous band with Steve Davis on bass. I saw that quartet often at the Jazz Gallery. Eventually Steve, Pete and I played a lot together and made a few records. Three Waves was Kuhn's trio date, while Art Farmer's Sing Me Softly of the Blues has a wonderful rendition of the Carla Bley title track. But the record most people know today is Basra.
...
"One of the tunes on Basra was 'Lazy Afternoon,' a tender ballad. We were in full flight, mid-take, with our eyes closed, when Kuhn reached inside the piano to pluck a chord. There were immediate loud and abrupt noises over the P.A. Rudy [legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder] came running out to the room in the middle of the take and angrily told Kuhn, 'If you touch those strings again, this date is over.' We were all sitting there pinned to our seats with our eyes bugged out.
...
https://jazztimes.com/features/columns/steve-swallow-pete-la-roca/
That is an interesting story. I read that Burton Greene was the first jazz pianist who directly played the piano strings on record (probably around 1966), adapting the idea of Henry Cowell. He called it piano harp. He also played prepared piano with golf balls and other objects. If Rudy Van Gelder allowed it, Kuhn might have been the first jazz pianist to record inside the piano.
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3739434827_16.jpg)
https://thebifemarchive.bandcamp.com/album/the-history-of-photography-in-sound-2018bifem-live
At last! Finnissy's History of Photography in excellent sound. Live performance by Mark Knoop. Confirms my intuition that this cycle is a masterpiece - but it's hard to tell from the sound on Ian Pace's recording. Even the free bandcamp stream is better sounding than the Pace.
The biggest revelation for me is how much fire there is in the music, it's passionate! Every bit as passionate as English Country Tunes.
There's a fourth Finnissy large piano cycle called Folklore, but as far as I know only the first two pieces have been recorded. Does anyone know if Folklore III and IV are anywhere to be heard?
Google reveals Vimeo videos of Folklore 3 and 4 by a Jacob Rhodebeck from 2008.
This recording is from my Final Doctoral Recital at the Staller Center Recital Hall at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY on December 9, 2008.
https://vimeo.com/19242184
https://vimeo.com/19260417
See also, for instance
https://www.facebook.com/spectrumNYC/posts/congratulations-to-pianist-jacob-rhodebeck-for-his-superb-perfoemance-of-michael/947296422043057/
http://www.jacobrhodebeck.com/repertoire.html
Quote from: T. D. on February 24, 2022, 04:06:16 PM
Google reveals Vimeo videos of Folklore 3 and 4 by a Jacob Rhodebeck from 2008.
This recording is from my Final Doctoral Recital at the Staller Center Recital Hall at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY on December 9, 2008.
https://vimeo.com/19242184
https://vimeo.com/19260417
See also, for instance
https://www.facebook.com/spectrumNYC/posts/congratulations-to-pianist-jacob-rhodebeck-for-his-superb-perfoemance-of-michael/947296422043057/
http://www.jacobrhodebeck.com/repertoire.html
Very good, thank you. Discussion of the cycle here
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3878893
Mr. Rhodebeck's website states he's in the process of recording the complete cycle, but I couldn't find independent verification. Something to watch for.
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Listening to Ivan Fidele's Etudes - Boreale and Australe. Very good recording by Pascale Berthelot. Some info here, I do not think the music has been produced with chance operations, despite the provocative title!
https://www.ecmrecords.com/shop/1569501624 (https://www.ecmrecords.com/shop/1569501624)
The music is very accessible - like, anyone who can enjoy Webern, let's say, should find this a rewarding cd to explore.
I've not explored Fidele's music much - he's been Arditi-fied - I expect he's a pretty solid composer in the old time classical music composer vein (i.e. proper scores, usual instruments, performers seated politely.)
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4078026649_10.jpg)
https://tamrikokordzaia.bandcamp.com/album/sieben-sonnengesichter-klaus-lang
This is meditative music, sweet, harmonious and introspective, people who know other things by Klaus Lang will know what to expect. Sweet isn't quite the right word -- it's not like a box of chocolates, there's enough going on there rhythmically and harmonically to keep it interesting. It can, for me, really touch the spot. From what I know of their tastes, TD may well like it, and milk. I certainly like it.
(NB there are sound problems on Spotify.)
There is, by the way, quite a bit of Klaus Lang's music on bandcamp, I didn't know
https://klauslang.bandcamp.com/
Quote from: Mandryka on May 03, 2021, 08:27:57 AM
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This CD features quite a long and exploratory piece of music called Beginners Mind, I have to say that it's one of the more interesting examples of piano music I've ever heard, a systematic exploration of a range of styles. Ian Pace is in fine fettle for it, and well recorded too. Zimmermann is, I think, a good composer - in a Howard Skempton/Laurence Crane sort of way.
Booklet here
https://d2ajug1vehh95s.cloudfront.net/92057booklet.pdf
Gertrud Schneider and Thomas Bächli play quartertone duets. Just a wonderful little album of gorgeous rarities, words fail me for once, jaw has dropped to the floor, all the music simple and accessible and appealing. You'll find it streaming everywhere
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51E-hj206SL._AC_.jpg)
Quote from: Mandryka on March 03, 2021, 12:09:26 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/_Ncfn1_UkIQ
Christopher Fox's More Things in the Air than are Visible part iii is for piano and various ambient nocturnal sounds including woofing dog, and tweety and hooty birds.
Rather nice.
Back to this, the movement with dogs and birds is like a modern sounding Bartok nocturne - really cool music actually, worth a try even for those who wouldn't normally touch anything avant garde with a barge pole.
Howard Skempton's Humming Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icOkDh1Ca2s&ab_channel=Tulkinnanvaraista
The idea is that there is no development, we are left to experience each sound in isolation rather than in a sequence of pitches. It does seem similar to the interview chords in Act 2 of Billy Budd, which starts at about 2:50 here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBRYQj9wfSI&ab_channel=BenjaminBritten-Topic
which in turn always makes me think of the second movement, the serenade, of Shostakovich's 15th quartet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFVM2WSEcKs&ab_channel=pastrychef1985
Skempton's Recessional, which is for any keyboard apparently, but I can only find organ, is kind of in the same style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0yw...l=CarsonCooman
https://open.spotify.com/album/2EYM5AoY8sjJZQxxzZdI6i?highlight=spotify:track:2fXkXebTeu7wEkOkHqqAxL
John McGuire's 48 Variations for two pianos -- played by Deborah Richards and Herbert Henk
This music has been taken up by Mark Knoop, and his performance is hearable here
https://auditoridigital.cat/video/sampler-48-variations-for-two-pianos/
The preface to Finnissy's Folklore
PREFACE
Folklore. Gramsci's imperative to compile an inventory of the 'infinity of traces' that historical processes leave on 'the self'. Folklore—a distant memory, an assemblage, a critical elaboration, an opposition of conjunctions, an open-ended investigation, a palimpsest, a self-portrait.
Folklore. Inherent attitudes. Pretension—the piano (a 'respectable' Victorian mantleshelf, spineless and domesticated)—Grieg (from childhood), another vision of Arcadia (cowherds, and peasants dancing); Grieg's influence on Percy Grainger (dismissed by some as a wayward amateur dishing up folk-tunes for the parlour), Grieg's harmonic innovations (impact on Debussy); John Cage (... Grieg was more interesting than the others ...). What else do I remember?
Folklore. England: insular and conservative, institutionalized de-spiritualized, tawdry and corrupt. Transforming 'angry young men' into embittered, cynical `couch-potatoes'. Rendering artists impotent through mockery and stereotyping (what is there to be afraid of ?). Politics: Capitalism. A free country in which censorship is universally rife. Hypocrisy. Bigotry. The cheap laugh. Cardew, Orton, Jarman. `Deep (Tippett) River'. Heads fall and are swept under the carpet. Nothing behind the eyes. Imperialism is served.
Folklore. Travel broadens the mind. (Food broadens the stomach). White men belittle Aboriginals (a member of the music-faculty at Melbourne Uni. asked why I was interested in `primitive trash'. Do I declare an interest in 'symbols of oppression'?) Power. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Levi-Strauss, Foucault. Diversity—or the world-culture (e.g. modernism)? Folklore. Untidy—insufficiently selective. Art/ editing/Experience (skill, in itself, potentially obscures icon/essence). A simulacrum. Evocation becomes Provocation.
Michael Finnissy
From Geofffrey Douglas Madge's recording of George Flynn's Derus Simples
QuoteContinuants exist at times and change from time to time. Xis a temporary part of Y if X is at some time part of Y and at some time (when Y exists) not part of Y. Parts without temporary parts are moments. X coincides with Y if X is at one or more times identical to Y. (Notes and melodies often coincide; superposed notes never coincide.) Moments of X coincide with X. A temporary part of X does not coincide with any part of some moment of X. Parts without parts are simples. All simples are parts of moments. Not all moments of parts are simples.
X is a regular continuant if every moment of part of X is part of a moment of X. (Every part of X coincides with part of each of one or more moments of X.)
Memories and their objects are regular continuants.
The times of parts of a moment of an object of memory need not be identical. The times of contiguous moments of an object of memory need not be contiguous.
A moment of a memory part is a rich moment if its object has temporary parts. (The object of a rich moment coincides with more than one moment.) Every moment of a rich memory is a rich moment. Objects of brief rich memories coincide with symphonies, yesterday, vacations, April, and other continuants of extended duration. Rich memories of words are thoughts.
Not every part of the object of a rich memory Z is the object of part of Z. No temporary part of the object of a momentary part of Z is the object of part of Z. No momentary part of the object of Z is the object of part of Z. No part of a rich memory is isomorphic to its object.
Non-temporary parts of the object of Z are objects of parts of Z.
The simples of a rich moment are rich [or Derus] simples. A rich simple is a qualification of its object. The qualification of this changing to that has this-changing-to-that-ness as a qual-ity. Some qualities can only be qualities of parts of rich memories (e.g. getting-redder-ness). Some relations can only relate parts of rich memories (e.g. getting getting-redder-ness-er than).
— Kenneth Derus: Memories and their Objects
Kenneth Derus (b. 1948) is a former director of the Center for Combinatorial Mathematics and the dedicatee of George Flynn's American Icon and Kaikhosru Sorabji's Opus secretum. He has written about music for Tempo and The New Grove (among others) but is mainly concerned with the mereotopology of memory experience.
Quote from: Mandryka on December 15, 2022, 11:15:56 AMThe preface to Finnissy's Folklore
QuoteFrom Geofffrey Douglas Madge's recording of George Flynn's Derus Simples
I hope their music sounds better than their mumbo-jumbo. ;D
Quote from: Florestan on December 29, 2022, 03:39:22 AMI hope their music sounds better than their mumbo-jumbo. ;D
Here's some more -- I forgot to post George Flynn's essay
QuoteDERUS SIMPLES is a continuous work whose gestures, shape and character result from expansions of simple sounds or ideas — "simples" — into complexities that frequently revert back to their simple origins.
The prevailing simple in this work is the tritone (usually F-B, near the center of the keyboard). Derus Simples begins and ends with this tritone. However developed, its presence throughout the piece ought generally to be clear.
The first part of Derus Simples expands on the tritone in an easily heard manner: the simple dyad accumulates notes in a variety of attack and decay modes while registrally expanding to the keyboard's lowest and highest B's. The following part [tr 2] develops arpeggiated and single-strike aggregates, with the arpeggiations expanding into fluid passages [tr 3] and the aggre-gates articulating their own "chorale" (however interrupted by the fluid passages), both of which, in turn, eventually prepare [tr 4] for the work's central, contrapuntal, section.
The contrapuntal section starts five times [Trs 5 - 9], with each start (except the second) leading to a progressively more elaborate and obviously more demanding development. The final develop-ment of this section at first dissipates (starting at Tr 10) to a momentary, quiet contemplation of material surrounding the cen-tral F-B tritone, and later to a progressively more frenzied approach to three "curtains" of sound [Trs 11 - 13] that prepare for the final section of Derus Simples. Each curtain consists of the same vast arpeggiation, low to high, followed by a version of the previously heard material.
The final section [tr 14] presents much of the work's original material but in reverse order, with interpolations from the contra-puntal section and sudden "mini" elaborations here and there (Tr 15 for example). The opening arpeggiations are recalled [tr 16], as is the central contrapuntal section [tr 17], while the original tri-tone becomes progressively more isolated as the end approaches, until it stands alone.
Derus Simples was commissioned by the philosopher Kenneth Derus as a way of celebrating the centenary of the composer Kaikhosru Sorabji (1892-1988). Its title acknowledges ideas pre-sented by Kenneth Derus in discussing Sorabji's music: in particu-lar his suggestion that we appreciate melodies, not notes, as basic elements ("simples") when we listen to and remember Sorabji's music. This notion of things being "simples" (basic elements with no parts) in certain worlds, but obviously structures (full of parts) in other worlds, galvanized my thinking while composing Derus Simples. (A definition of "Derus simple," as the term is used in philosophy, appears elsewhere in this booklet.) - GEORGE FLYNN
Quote from: Mandryka on December 29, 2022, 03:44:09 AMHere's some more -- I forgot to post George Flynn's essay
This is a cut above the other two, actually. ;)
https://www.rodoni.ch/busoni/novitacd/finnissy.html
Programme note on Finnissy's Kapitalistische Realisme (mit Sizilianische Männerakte und Bachsche Nachdichtungen) from History of Photography by Kenneth Derus
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Ross Bolleter's Secret Sandhills is a work for six ruined pianos. I know you probably won't believe me -- but this is a serious piece of music and well worth seeking out. This is possibly a "great" album of piano music. Bolleter's written a book about music which I'd like to see, The Well Weathered Piano -- how drole!
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2834902211_10.jpg)
https://nicolashodges.bandcamp.com/album/saunders-boucourechliev-clarke-riehm-archipels
I think there are some really cool Skriabin vibes in James Clarke's Second Piano Sonata on this Nick Hodges release -- and maybe some strong Finnissy vibes too (Etched in Bright Sunlight)
Anyway -- I may be wrong, but even if I am it's a nice bit of music.
Hammerklavier, Bernhard Lang style
Quote from: Mandryka on April 13, 2024, 01:38:00 AMHammerklavier, Bernhard Lang style
I know nothing about Lang, but that's an interesting bit of deconstruction/riffing on a theme, a touch Ives-ian at times I thought. And hearing the 106 1st movt afterwards through the prism of its probing, worked in a beneficial way for me, the piece seems like a successful little token of love.