ANABlog

Iannis Xenakis, "Dikhthas"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:38:00 +0000

Alvin Lucier, "Still Lives: Chopsticks"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

It's Census Time

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:54:00 +0000

And that means it's time for a dose of Christopher Walken:

RIP, Alex

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:06:00 +0000

King's X, "Wonder"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:26:00 +0000

Happy 332nd, Tony!

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:08:00 +0000

Salve Regina, RV 616
Gérard Lesne, Fabio Biondi, Il Seminario Musicale

Ulrich Süße, "no player"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:10:00 +0000

for Soprano (Coloratura), two pianos, Flute, Saxophone (Alto), Trombone, Tape, Live Electronics and Mechanical Pinball Machine (1982)
Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII

"no player" is based on bricks from the past. The title verbalizes on the one hand the most prominent musical motif:

and refers, on the other hand, to the language of the entertaining industry. With the use of electronic devices, an integral caution prevails.

The title becomes apparent in every performance when, at the end of the piece, all the musicians are inactive, whereas the pinball machine continues to "play" (via remote control).

In the comparison between pinball machine and music, the piano reflects the case/body of the pinball machine and the basic music (Prelude of Bach's 2. English Suite) the ball manoeuvers, creating ever increasing formal circles, stemming from the Bach A-B-A form:

Each time the main motif is reached, the music springs back to the start. Four players (first to fourth player: coloratura soprano, flute, saxophone and trombone) activate the pinball machine/the music - the elements of their playing consists of motifs of the Bach Prelude. Furthermore, when the musical passage becomes immobile at the point where the soprano stops participating, this situation can be compared with an irregular ball manoeuvre and thus disqualification in a pinball game. The Chopin part could either symbolize another pinball machine or moments of surprise during a game. The final circle indicates that an A-B-A form can e played endlessly. -- Ulrich Süße

Nutcracker is a Real Ballbuster for ABT

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:13:00 +0000

* American Ballet Theater foregoes a fall season to cash in on Christmas.

* Danny Elfman on Tim Burton: "...it’s his head in his hands shaking his head as if he’s just been stabbed in the heart. That’s the bad body expression when I play a piece of music. The good one is a kind of a slight nodding of the head."

* Philly's Ars Nova Workshop turns 10.

* Ray Still: "Reiner could make the orchestra dance on the head of a pin."

* Michigan's unemployment may be at 15%, but the Grand Rapids Opera has a brand new building.

* Portland's going on a new music bender.

Rachmaninoff Plays Gluck

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:06:00 +0000

"Dance of the Blessed Spirits"
Orfeo ed Euridice

Logorama

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:06:00 +0000

Found it (God bless Twitter).

Enjoy:

It's 1992 All Over Again...

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:49:00 +0000

That's my scotch egg. I wolfed it down at Wilfie & Nell's, but not after I was gobsmacked by all the fucking flannel. The coup de grace was some writer from 30 Rock who was giving notes to a guy who'd written a spec script for the show. He was rocking electric blue corduroy pants and a ginormous pastel flannel shirt. (He was also dispensing very supportive advice to his friend)

The egg and the Smithwick's were calming my nerves after an ear-splitting menu of animated shorts at the ~~Waverly~~ IFC Center. The room must have seated 75, but the audio was intended to fill an arena.

Most of the films were up for Oscars, and it was kind of shocking to see how similar they were. There was a Wallace & Gromit episode, which wasn't their best, but was a good fix nonetheless. The rest were all based on old people à la Up.

There was the lonely old French guy in the bistro struggling to pay his bill (with requisite cabaret music). There was the old lady trying in vain to die and be with her dead husband in Heaven (with the requisite phonograph music). Then there was the absolutely bizarre one about an old man trying to invent a movie projector with the help of his consumptive wife (with the requisite sobbing solo violin).

I'm not sure when old people became the flannel of animation, but it needs to stop.

Then came Logorama.

Words cannot do it justice. It's something that escaped from Adult Swim and ended up nominated for an Oscar. It needs to win.

This 'trailer' is just the opening moments of the film, and it, in no way, prepares you for what comes next:

Sunday With Our Good Friends:

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:34:00 +0000

ANALOG arts ensemble and Monument Piano Trio
An Die Musik
409 N. Charles Street (2nd Fl), Baltimore
Sunday, February 30
3 PM
$20 ($15 Seniors/$10 Students)

PROGRAM
Michael Sheppard, Let Beauty Awake
Jonathan Leshnoff, Song Without Words
James Lee III, Scenes from Eternity's Edge*
Stuart Saunders Smith, Part
Rudolf Kamper, Music for Five Players*

* world premiere

PERSONNEL
Marcia Kamper, flute
Rudolf Kamper, trumpet
Michael Sheppard, piano
Dariusz Skoraczewski, cello
Igor Yuzefovich, violin

Dolf assembled a program of Baltimore music for our show this Sunday with members Monument Piano Trio. It's a nice mix of styles, ranging between the twin poles of the moment: modernism and romanticism.

We're giving the first performances of two new works on Sunday. Dolf's is a texture for the full ensemble. He describes it as contemplative, which surely can't have anything to do with the newborn baby that's been dominating his daily life.

The other premiere was arranged through Monument Trio's agent, who came across a wonderful local composer and professor at Morgan State. James Lee writes a great deal of music inspired by the Bible, and Scenes Upon Eternity’s Edge deals specifically with the eschatological aspects of the Good Book, particularly the books of Revelation and Daniel. Even though he was writing for us, we swear we didn't force him to deal with Michael's battle with the dragon in Revelation. (We promise: no formulas!)

It's always a pleasure to work with Monument, and Sunday's concert is really a windup for the other concerts we'll do at An Die Musik this spring, including a CD release party for Dariusz' solo debut.

Markus & Simon Stockhausen, "Neuzeit"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:50:00 +0000

ms
ss

Clapton @ the Beacon

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:19:00 +0000

The current issue of Rolling Stone has a feature about Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. In trying to hype their upcoming shows, the magazine manufactures yet another vignette of artistic reawakening for Clapton. It's all beyond pro forma now.

Discrediting a previous effort in order to promote the current one is a standard beat in any record review these days, and with the perennially restless Clapton, this has always held doubly true.

The meme reaches its peak in the article with a description of his stints at the Beacon with the Allman Brothers last year:

"It was interesting to watch him adapt, playing longer solos than he expected because of the band swelling up around him," says Allmans guitarist Warren Haynes. "He went back in time a little with his attack, the overall letting go." Haynes was especially blown away by Clapton's meaty soaring the second night during "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed": "His solo was filled with reckless abandon." Clapton knew it too. When the song was over, he turned to Derek Trucks and said, "I haven't played like that since 1967."

Expecting the usual, tasteful, note-bending stuff, I was stunned to find this description actually falls short.

Way short.

After the obligatory, surprisingly out of tune unison lead, Derek Trucks gives a very polished, highly technical, overlong solo (part 1). Then Clapton doesn't so much take over as he starts playing a whole new song. He comes out of the gate so hard here that it seems unsustainable. When he just keeps increasing the intensity, you can't help but smile from ear to ear. It really has been a long, long time since he reminded us that he could play like this:

Huns in Lincoln Center

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:07:00 +0000

Verdi's Attila premiered at the Met last night.

Pierre-Andre Arcand, "Fer Sur Fer"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Tino Sehgal

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:28:00 +0000

Everything I'd read about Tino Sehgal's exhibition at the Guggenheim made me want to see it. So, I went.

The first thing you see is a pair of dancers cavorting in slow motion on the floor. Not a good sign. (Slow-mo?! Really?) It's supposed to be subversive, two people engaged so intimately in public (let alone on display in a museum). It would've been more thrilling if they were actually making out in real time, and even an iota of sexual compatibility would've helped.

After about 90 seconds of standing over them to see how disciplined they were, I headed up the ramp behind my wife. At the first gallery, a young girl approached my wife. I had walked up into the gallery to enjoy the emptiness of it. The girl ushered my wife up the stairs and said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes," said my wife.

"What is progress?" asked the girl.

She then lead my wife up the ramp as she answered the question. Anytime her answers seemed to lag, the girl would ask another question. A few levels up, she handed us off to a husky college student who launched into a dissertation about progress that was oh so very blogoriphic. We were supposed to be enamored with the idea that he had gobbled up Toll House cookie dough from the package when he was a kid and that the story on the back of the package was his idea of progress: a series of happy accidents.

Cute stuff, but it came out of him all wrong. Instead of being charmingly twee, he felt uncomfortable and rushed through his lines. It came off as canned. That left me wondering if it was assigned to him or if he came up with it himself, and why any of this was worth emptying out the rotunda. As we walked by the Anish Kapoor exhibit, and then when the entrance to the Paris avant-garde exhibit passed us by, I winced at the opportunity to encounter something more interesting.

Eventually, we were passed off to a woman in her late 50's/early 60's, who was the first to try and engage me. I simply walked and listened as my wife did the chatting. Most of our hosts seemed relieved at not having to bother with me. The older woman reverted to the child's mode of questioning, a cute narrative arc from innocence through sophism and back into open-mindedness. She asked us about the nature of accidental progress versus deliberate progress, and we ended with a discussion of how a musician such as myself has to rely on both.

It was a pleasant encounter. All of it was pleasant, for that matter. It was a bit like speed dating. Why it merited such a high profile showcase escaped both of us.

There was a heavy-handedness to walking up the spiralled rotunda as someone yammers on at you about progress. The 'Are We There Yet?' in-joke was tiresome, and when you're in the Guggenheim talking about progress, your brain is amped up to expect something a little more substantive than a prepackaged story about prepackaged foodstuff.

The exhibit did have one extremely pleasant side effect, though. For the rest of my time in the museum, I kept expecting strangers to talk to me, especially when they got within a certain range. That transformation of my personal space was quite delightful.

And it was a hoot to see all the hosts and hostesses lined up at their stations, waiting for their turn to talk to someone. It must have felt like being a hostess at a USO dance.

Colin Farrell, "Gone Gone Gone"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:49:00 +0000

Louis Armstrong, "Go Down Moses"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:38:00 +0000

La Monte Young, "The Melodic Version Of The Second Dream Of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer From The Four Dreams Of China"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:19:00 +0000

The Music of Meyer Kupferman

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:51:00 +0000

-- LINER NOTES --

AMERICAN ACADEMY AND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
MUSIC OF MEYER KUPFERMAN

THE CELESTIAL CITY
Gilbert Kalish, pianist, performing live and on prerecorded tapes

THE GARDEN OF MY FATHER'S HOUSE
Max Pollikoff, violinist; Meyer Kupferman, clarinetist

ANGEL FOOTPRINTS
Max Pollikoff, violinist, performing live and on prerecorded tapes

MEYER KUPFERMAN (b. 1926, New York City) is self-taught in composition. He has been a professor of composition at Sarah Lawrence College for 30 years, where he' has also served as chairman of the music department. He has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Library of Congress, in addition to the 1981 composers award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters that made this recording possible. His Symphony No. 10: FDR was commissioned and performed by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's birth.

He is a virtuoso clarinetist and has given annual recitals with his "Music by My Friends" ensemble, a group which has introduced more than fifty new works by American and European composers. Kupferman's special brainchild, the Sarah lawrence Improvisation Ensemble, which he created and conducted for sixteen years, is an important vehicle for experimental work by young composers and performers.

In the late 50's he started to compose music which utilized jazz materials within a framework of atonality. In 1961 he began work on his Cycle of Infinities, a diverse collection of almost fifty works all based on the same twelve-tone row. He has composed twelve film scores, among which Halleluja the Hills, Blast of Silence, Black Uke Me, Trilogy, and Goldstein have received international notice. He writes:

"When I composed THE CELESTIAL CITY in 1974 for my dear friend, Gilbert Kalish, I conceived of the work as a concerto for piano and orchestra even though the piece has no orchestra. The tape accompaniment is scored for two tracks of prerecorded piano, which provide a background that is as imposing and as colorful as an orchestra and that is more flexible. The combined sound of these tightly coordinated pianos creates a contemporary 'SUPERPIANO!' which can dazzle us with its endless displays of astonishing keyboard sonorities and which apparently requires an indefatigable 'six-handed' virtuoso (like Kalish) to operate.

"The work is a 'gestalt' piece, taking its form from my earlier experiments with unusual stylistic mixtures and combinations of tonality and atonality. Like a giant city which embraces all cultures and eventually develops its own, my concerto includes different melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and textural ideas which, under normal circumstances, have little in common, but which ultimately speak, I hope, in one expressive voice.

"While the thematic materials of THE CELESTIAL CITY are original, the concerto suggests musical epochs of the past. It is my conviction that anachronistic sound-images, imbedded in the musical structure of a twentieth-century work, produce a time displacement or psycho-acoustical disturbance.

"Although the concerto is in one continuous movement, the piece is divided into six major episodes. A gradual metamorphosis, sometimes supported by brief transitional phrases between episodes, occurs throughout the course of the work. The principal episodes are:

1) Atonal Images (slow)
2) Balinese Scherzo (fast and light)
3) Introspection (slow and free)
4) Macedonian Dance (rhythmic, ultimately driving)
5) The Romantic Age (slow, then very grandiose)
6a) Modern Jazz Cadenza (on the fast side)
6b) Funky Jazz Combo (bright tempo)

"In section 6b, the Funky Jazz Combo, one taped piano part creates 'jazz drum' and 'jazz bass' effects by plucking, strumming or beating inside the piano.

"I composed THE GARDEN OF MY FATHER'S HOUSE in 1972 in memory of my father, who was my first music teacher. Although he played many instruments and loved to sing, he could not read a note of music. When I was very young he would sing Gypsy songs, Yiddish folk-songs and Rumanian tunes to me and I would play them back on my clarinet, often with omaments and variations. Sometimes he would accompany me on the piano; he had a few favorite chords which always seemed to pop up no matter what the tune.

"The piece is a musical ritual, based on a C-sharp drone, or pedal note, that is heard without interruption, across several ranges, throughout the piece. The violin's drone tremolos, often combined with perfect fifths and quarter-tone tunings, imply the key of C-sharp minor. The violin part is always rubato -lyrical, expressive and frequently very passionate. But, most importantly, the violin is always tonal.

"The clarinet, on the other hand, is atonal, its pitches drawn from the twelve-tone row that I used to write my Cycles of Infinities. The style of the clarinet is contemporary, using wide-range intervals, biting accents and unusual instrumental effects, including fluttertonguing and quarter-tone trills.

"In combining the 'contrasting' roles of the two instruments, I sought to create a musical ritual-game that would draw energy and bits of information from the polarized instruments. The language of the piece calls the listener's attention to the cogent features of both instrumental personalities in a manner that is somewhat similar to the way in which Yiddish combines German and Hebrew. The drone becomes more and more magnetic and begins to join the parts together until they become one in the final C-sharp unison."

"ANGEL FOOTPRINTS, commissioned by Max Pollikoff, was completed in 1973. The use of a tape part, consisting of two tracks of pre-recorded violin, continues my experiments with 'mirror' tape procedures begun more than a decade earlier.

"Written for violin, the work is a 'treble' piece by nature. While composing it, I discovered that my melodies always seemed to ascend, creating additional emphasis on the music's treble character (I soon realized that it was best not to fight this tendency, so I just let it happen.) A considerable range of coloristic, melodic, harmonic and rhythmic devices were therefore required to compensate for the absence of low notes, but no electronic tape manipulations were necessary.

"Much of the focus of the work is on melody, and, in creating the tape parts, I chose to stress similarities, rather than contrasts, among the different lines; for example, stretto-like canons are frequently draped around the live violin line.

"ANGEL FOOTPRINTS is in one continuous movement, but many of its episodes are long enough to be miniature movements in themselves. I found it imperative to close the compositional circle of the piece by creating the suggestion of an arch form; therefore, the opening and finale turned out to be exactly the same, except for the use of mutes in the recapitulation.

"The individual episodes vary quite dramatically in tempo, rhythmic style and scale. Sharp dissonance is an important tool for certain sections; the overall mood, however, is one of innocent, even temperament. While we were taking a walk after I had played her excerpts of the piece, my wife stopped and said, 'It sounds like angel footprints.'"

GILBERT KALISH fully deserves his reputation as a master pianist. All of his performances and recordings seem to generate superlatives. In addition to a heavy schedule of recitals and master classes, he is pianist with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, head of keyboard activities at T anglewood and frequent guest artist with leading ensembles.

MAX POLLIKOFF is one of the wonders of today's music world. A former child prodigy, he is known as a recitalist extraordinary and creator of New York's Music in Our Time, a series that has introduced more than 250 contemporary works.

This record is sponsored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters as part of its music awards program. Four cash awards and a CRI recording are given annually to honor and encourage promising composers and to help them continue their creative work; Meyer Kupferman was a winner in 1981.

This recording employed hand-made ribbon microphones in pairs, spaced six feet apart, in the best available acoustical environment. Their output was fed to a 30 IPS Studer A-SO tape recorder, slightly modified for constant velocity record-playback characteristics, using half-inch tape with two channels, each channel almost V4-inch wide. In this way Y the need for conventional (and troublesome) noise reduction devices was eliminated and the resulting reproduction challenges the digital storage method so far as clarity and cleanliness of sound are concerned. Lacquer masters were cut from the original tapes, employing an Ortofon transducer system with motional feedback. To minimize groove echo, the lacquer masters were processed within twelve hours using the latest European equipment and techniques. Strict quality control pressings were made of the purest available vinyl.

This record was made possible by grants from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University and private donors.

THE CELESTIAL CITY - 24'56"
THE GARDEN - 8 min.
ANGEL FOOTPRINTS - 18'13"
Recorded by David Hancock, New York, October 1981
Produced by Carter Harman
Associate Producer: Carolyn Sachs
Art Director: Judith Lerner
Cover drawing by Meyer Kupferman
LC#: 82-743038
THIS IS A COMPOSER-SUPERVISED RECORDING
Printed in the U.S.A

AGP 155

Alec Ounsworth, "What Fun."

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:25:00 +0000

Wlodzimierz Kotonski, "Tierra Caliente"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:42:00 +0000

Joseph Rheinberger, "Six Pieces for Violin and Organ, Op. 150"

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:29:00 +0000

1. Thema Mit Veraender
2. Abendlied
3. Gigue
4. Pastorale
5. Elegie
6. Ouverture

RIP, Nodar Kumaritashvili

noreply@blogger.com (jodru) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:12:00 +0000

The New York Times ran a tragically prescient article on Wednesday about the dangers of the Winter Olympics, citing the very track where Nodar died:

Safety is no more assured in Vancouver than it was on the way there. American bobsledders have called Curve 13 of the Olympic track “50-50,” for the chances of making it through without a wreck. The track was so surprisingly fast when it opened (a luger went a record 153.937 kilometers per hour — 95.65 m.p.h., or about 6 m.p.h. faster than ever before — during last year’s test event) that Josef Fendt, the president of the international luge federation, said, “It makes me worry.”

God willing, this will be the only fatality at the games, and this will also be a wake-up call to the IOC to reassess their priorities.