Gavin Bryars

[Luke]

I love lists of all kinds, so this definitely can be something I'd like. And speaking of lists and marine life, this springs to mind (my mind, can't be sure of others):

http://www.youtube.com/v/n7wPsguEDDg

Oh wow, absolutely - slow that down, mellow it out and add jazz harmonies and you have just the sort of thing I'd expect from Bryars! 

[Luke]

So, Karl, what did you make of The Archangel Trip?

[karlhenning]

Haven't listened yet. Mañana!

[karlhenning]

I love it [Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet], and I find it an interesting work. But it and the other earlier pieces (pre-Medea) are more widely at odds with the later Bryars even more than pre- and post-tintinabuli Part (for instance). The later works have The Bryars Sound writ through every single note, for better or worse. The earlier, conceptual works are equally imbued with his pataphysically-minded spirit, but the sounds themselves vary wildly, from performance to performance (e.g. the Obscure recording of 1, 2, 1,2 ,3 4 is exquisitely seductive; the same work could equally be horrific). Jesus Blood, however, always sounds the same, and it is a beautiful sound. The music bears the repetition, for me, anyway, and that is saying something. However, I never 'got' the later extended remixes (with Tom Waits and so on). The piece in its pure form is enough for me.

Hmm, just listened to clips of this, and (what shouldn't surprise me) it's entirely different to whatever I had been expecting. Keen to give it a proper listen, now.

[Guido]

Hmm, just listened to clips of this, and (what shouldn't surprise me) it's entirely different to whatever I had been expecting. Keen to give it a proper listen, now.

Can't believe you've never heard it! It's a great piece. In the right context!

[karlhenning]

So, Karl, what did you make of The Archangel Trip?

I can pat myself on the back for having thought of the Russian port on my own, before reading the liner notes.  Lovely piece.

Frightfully, here's another composer I feel I want to listen to several more pieces of . . . .

[Luke]

For those who like this stuff, at various times during the running of the mystery scores thread I put three Bryars scores on it. Links if you want to see

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,3125.msg224385.html#msg224385
The second score is Bryars' short-score of Jesus' Blood. So odd that he notated the melody in three when to my ears it is in four...and yet funnily enough it does work in the three too (though I still don't think what he's notated is precisely what the tramp sings)

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,3125.msg178342.html#msg178342
The top one is Mr Sunshine, one of Bryars early concept/experimental pieces. Actually his 'opus 1' (not that he uses op numbers, but you know what I mean). What a contrast with...

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,3125.msg79951.html#msg79951
This is the Cello Concerto Farewell to Philosophy that UB siad is his favourite Bryars work. I mentioned it in one of the earlier posts too - to my mind it's certainly his most fully succesful piece for orchestra.

[UB]

While wandering through Bryars website I came across his writing on the recording of the Wait version of 'Jesus Blood.' For some reason I did not realize the first track of the long version is an uncut version of the original one that Luke prefers. I am sure that if I had read the notes that came with the cd I would have known but I tend not to read the notes but just listen to the music.

Anyway if interested you can read Bryars comment at http://www.gavinbryars.com/Pages/listening_room_fr.html - go to writings and near the end you will find the essay.

[7/4]

Listening to The Last Days now, studying this thread for more.

[calyptorhynchus]

He has written a Concerto for Bass Oboe which I'd love to hear, but it hasn't been recorded.

Anyone know of any other works for this instrument?

[7/4]

links

Gavin Bryars, a few albums on EweTube

most of those links are dead now.

[71 dB]

While exploring contemporary composers (Naxos releases), I discovered Gavin Bryars, whose Naxos disc was a revelation to me. The only other disc I have listened to (on Spotify) is the ECM disc 'Three Viennese Dancers', but it didn't have as big impact on me (maybe I had wrong mood?) There seems to be quite a lot of disc of his music to explore, but at the moment I'm "busy" exploring other contemporary composers.

[Rinaldo]

Still my favourite performance of the Sinking of the Titanic..

https://www.youtube.com/v/SkfJVTPV-Ps

[Rinaldo]

I'm researching Bryars for an upcoming interview and I've stumbled across this older conversation which I found interesting: Culturekiosque: An interview with Gavin Bryars

Is what you are writing now more cutting edge for you than the more academic area of new music?

The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all. It's rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That's one way of making music. There's another way of making music, by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people. The ideal, of course, is to have the respect of professionals and the admiration of amateurs. I suppose this was the case in the past. Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one.

With its shrinking publics, doesn't the classical music industry see you as an interface to younger publics?

I'm kind of young and vibrant myself! For an old man I feel flattered! Record companies and live concert organisations have gone on for too long, reproducing the same repertoire endlessly. There are only so many new Beethoven cycles or Brahms symphonies with the same conductor, specially when most record companies have in their vaults some masterpieces of very fine conductors, recorded in the 60s or late 50s. It makes sense to invest in new work. It's almost like having a research department in a scientific laboratory. You have to try things out. You'll make some bad mistakes. Some things will fail but at least you'll energise the organisation.

[Monsieur Croche]

...what did you make of The Archangel Trip?

Not Karl, so dropping in as myself.  I remember liking it quite a lot, it is a kind of lovely as well as humorous piece, at least for a number of listenings -- after which, and I this is somewhat true of all Bryars for me, a tendency to feel one has 'had enough' of one of the pieces, and to move on and check out something else - by him or someone else.  That is not an against; there is plenty of really worthwhile music which is rather like that.

What I have liked and return to (still) every once in a while:
The South Downs, for piano and 'cello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMb8ecR1cKI

One Last Bar, Then Joe Can Sing, for percussion ensemble:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_IgULb0Vh4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw6TZ8adn0w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbsy457moQ0

His Man in a room, Gambling and Jesus' blood never failed me yet both certainly make an impression, and are hugely entertaining (the first of criteria for a successful piece is that it holds your attention all the way through) yet also have not had me coming back for more than two or three total listens.  Whenever and wherever he has set a text, I find the piece dreadfully somewhere between dull and maybe even pretentious, so have nothing to say about any of the vocal / choral rep  (other than his Piano concerto, The Solway Canal with its included chorus might win my prize for the worst of these.)  All ^that^ has me finding him more than a little uneven in what he makes that interests me.

For me he is a 'temporal' composer, engaging / entertaining at least for a little while, and truly asking anything more in the way of longevity 'tests of time' and 'music for generations for the ages,' if not a steaming pile of horse dung, is really worth only so much when judging music.  He engages, entertains, at least once or a few more times.  I think initially, that is all anyone could or should expect.

Gavin Bryars ~ The Archangel Trip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFCalz5vFTo

What I remember best from that CD that has held my attention / interest much longer than Bryars is:
David Lang ~ Slow Movement
https://www.youtube.com/v/4wL78h0hAaU