VOTD 2/11/2024

 Jo Kondo: Standing/Sight Rhythmics/Under the Umbrella (CP2)

Bought at an open sale from the WQED library

The open sale I mention above was to benefit WRCT. Pay one price, take as many recordings as you want. WQED, Pittsburgh's classical station, was unloading their long-since used vinyl collection. What was the cost, $5? $10? I walked off with something like forty albums, and felt like I was being moderate about what I took. 

It was an opportunity to collect some CRI releases that I didn't necessarily want to buy individually. I mean, how many Ralph Shapey records does one need?

The records all have a label attached to the front, with two columns to write in dates or play and track. Significantly, this and quite a few of the other records I bought had no markings on the label. Coe on WQED, you didn't play the hell out of Brian Ferneyhough's impenetrable "Transit"?

I might not have even noticed this from the composer's name, but I recognized the label due to its simple, consistent graphic design. CP2 (or CP squared?) was Paul Zukofsky's label; the performances are excellent, the selections interesting. This record is a little unusual in that Paul himself does not perform on it at all. Side one are Japanese musician: the group Sound Space "Ark" plays the first, the second is a piano work played by Aki Takahashi. Side two is an all percussion work. I can only find one other credit for Sound Space "Ark" on another Japanese composer's record.

I was immediately taken with the piece "Standing" on first listen. It's an undefined instrumentation, for three instruments each from a different instrumental family. The notes are often individual events, played in succession from one instrument to another, so there's the sense of a color change for each microevent. It's very inventive composing, and I think the piece works effectively. It's not what we would traditionally call "minimalist" composition, but it's not too far astray from that approach also.

"Sight Rhythmics" is a punctuated piece for piano. It sounds like cells of events are intermingled, with the attacks and dynamics of each note being very important. There's a degree of repetition that makes it stand out from the post-war piano music of Stockhausen, Boulez, or Xenakis. Ms. Takahashi was one of the three pianists of choice for Morton Feldman, perhaps being his favorite of all (another being Roger Woodward, and I'm blanking on the third, maybe David Tudor?). It's not as dazzlingly virtuosic as some music she plays (which can be very difficult) but the preciseness of the rhythms and attacks requires attention to detail. 

"Under the Umbrella" is for percussion quintet playing 25 cowbells only. The opening notes brought some of John Cage's prepared piano music to mind for me. That in itself is a reminder of the Asian influence on Cage's music, in spirit if not in method.

I'm sounding too serious here. I like the record. It's never been reissued digitally, as far as I know. There's a vinyl rip on Youtube, but this deserves a more loving and professionally remastered edition. Zukofsky died in 2017, so I don't know that there's much motivation on anyone's part to reissue this and the other albums on his label.