CDOTD 5/24/2023

 Maurizio Bianchi: GENI-Z (Steinklang)

Purchased through mail order from Bandcamp

For the two-three people who check in with this blog regularly, you'd have probably noticed a longer gap than usual between postings. I started another post about Rolf Kühn, and I may return to it. I've had on Ornette Coleman and Joachim Kühn's Colors, and one of the four discs in The Pyramids' Aomawa (The 1970s Recordings) collection. I've been busy, also attended a memorial for Tracy Turner, haven't been of a mind to continue this exercise for a few days, and nobody's exactly lighting a fire under my butt to make me post more. I may post some thoughts on those in the future.

This disc arrived yesterday from....Italy I guess? At least, overseas. I found it on Bancamp and noted the edition of 100, and figured why not. 

So welcome again to MBLand, the unhappiest place on Earth, Disneyland's least popular -land. 

I'll repeat what Adam MacGregor said about power electronics groups: it's often pretty hard to tell one from another, especially when there are no vocals. I don't know that I would characterize MB's recordings, even at their more abrasive and depressing, as being PE at all.

How would I describe his tapes and albums? He has enough of a history to be able to roughly place his albums into some general descriptions. The earliest tapes, under the name Sacher-Pelz, were largely turntable abuse. I've spent enough time with the reissues of these tapes to know that I've had enough. Sometime after he started using the MB moniker, he began primitive experiments on a Korg MS-20. The starkest of these are also tough to sit through, if preferable to the turntable tapes. His synth work developed over time, and he subsequently started making primitive two-track recordings, with the left and right channels completely isolated. Step by step, he's adding more techniques and equipment (a drum machine comes in at some point) when his first LPs are released. 

Then there's what I would consider a breakthrough in his development: running all sounds through a heavy fog of delay. The smeared sound would define MB albums until his retirement around 1984. It's easy to call these recordings "dark ambient" (well before the term even came to be) but the descriptor at least puts you in the neighborhood.

When he returned in 1998, it's hard for me to describe exactly what's going on. His analog equipment has largely as far as I can tell, been abandoned. He's sometimes collaborating. Of those albums I've heard, some have similarities to the later pre-retirement albums: noisy but soft-edged. There have been so many releases in the subsequent years, I question whether he himself has copies of all of them. 

Why did I buy this? I suppose it was an impulse buy. Maybe I'm a bit of a sucker for limited editions. There may be 200 artists out there doing something that sounds similar. But you know, MB is my guy. I can't track down everything that sounds like this, and don't want to do so. And maybe I'm still interested in the progression of his work, despite (or maybe because) there are portions of his body of work I don't like at all. (As I think I've noted before, his first CD after returning from retirement is abysmally bad.)

Maurizio is back in "dark ambient" territory here. Tracks are long (four of five clock in at over 13 minutes apiece), and nothing seems as if it's in a hurry. Vaguely machine-like sounds rise and fall. Or is it breathing? Mechanical biologics? His tracks often ran long, distinguishing him from other industrial noise artists from the early 1980s. Tracks were sometimes limited in length by the a tape or LP side. Now, without such limitations, he's making the pieces as long as he sees fit, which happens to be around the same length.

Whatever is going on, he sounds like he has developed his work in ways he couldn't have imagined in his early analog days. For as much as I have an affection of the rough-and-ready analog pieces (some of them at least), this is digital, and not in a bad way. There's a clarity to the fuzziness? 

Maurizio's interesting take on the English language is on display in the notes: "Catalytic-sound material generated and encoded over the years 2015 to 2022 using nucleic-electronic sources and noise frequency sequences. Concretistic molecular images structured within my Opera's house." He also thanks Pharmaküstik for "genomic mixing."

Good ol' MB! 

VOTD 5/16/2023

 Henri Lazarof: Textures/Cadence III/Partita (Candide)

Purchased at Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

There are so many of these records, of then-current composers getting a shot at a record on a respectable label. I don't buy every record on the Candide label I can, but the back cover is an indication of why I always pay attention: in large letters on various covers: Satie, Berio, Alkan, Scriabin, Japan, The Chinese Violin, etc. This is to speak nothing of other Candide releases devoted to Ligeti, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Gesualdo, and other people of interest.

I've been buying a lot of these records recently. I make no apologies for buying anything (cheap!) of particular interest to me, for example records out of the Duquesne collection by BA Zimmermann, or the 3-LP set by Paul Zukofsky. I'd have paid more but am grateful I didn't have to do so. With so many of these modern composers on various labels, I'm also trying to be choosier. 

I passed this over the first time or two seeing it. I have another Lazarof LP. I don't remember anything about it. The titles looked promising, but did I need to spend another $3 on another LP that will take up yet more space in my house?

Then I saw the magic words. What are the magic words? "...and tape." In this case, it is the "Partita" for brass quintet and tape. 

Given a reasonable price, I will (nearly) always buy an album of, or that includes, early electronic music. There's the content that interests me; how was the technology being used? In a case such as this, does it sound dated?

I like the sweat on old electronic music pieces. It took a great deal of effort for them to realize their works, only multiplied if it's a work for live musicians with recorded sound. 

I have both an enthusiasm and ambivalence to electronic music in general (a term that is antiquated). I like the sonic possibilities of electronics, of shaping sound directly. I'm certain these works and composers have influenced my saxophone playing in significant ways, that I'm often trying to achieve electronic types of sounds on an acoustic instrument. 

So why do I also say ambivalence? Because, even though I actively collection early electronic music albums, I'm not interested in electronic music as a category. It's true that early digital composers put equal or greater efforts into creating their works as people working on analog media. I have a number of those recordings too, but they just don't have the same appeal for me as the analog creators. Maybe the sometime grungier quality of the analog-era creations also appeals to me more. 

And how many of these works for "<instrument/ensemble/voice> and tape" can even be performed any longer, assuming there's the will to perform someone such as Lazarof in the first place? I know the tape-with-live-players works by Stockhausen and Xenakis are well preserved, but they're at the top of the modern composer heap so to speak. Are the materials for "Partita" available should someone want to take it on? 

Works such as these seem so fleeting now. There's someone somewhere in the world who is playing Bach right now; perhaps not on exactly the instrument he intended, but his work has had serious legs. What of "Partita"? What of Leon Kirchner's work for string quartet and tape? And what does this say about current pieces involving acoustical instruments and technology, whether it's pre-prepared recordings or live processing of instruments? The technology updates itself at a startling rate. Imagine you created a work using Mac OS 7. Assuming you were able to preserve the work at all, exactly how could you play it now?

Records such as this feel like an artifact of a bygone age, even though that age is within my lifetime. (The pieces on this LP date from 1970-71.) It's a reminder that this is in fact not new music, it's ancient music.

And all of this said, Lazarof's work isn't really electronic music at all, even if it is technology-based composition. The tape in this case is recordings of more brass quintet performances. Perhaps there was a little manipulation of the tape as he was creating it here and there, but the sounds are generally faithful to their source. With proper scoring an ensemble arranging, and perhaps some sound projection a la Stockhausen, this could have been possibly played by an entirely live ensemble. My favorite parts of the work are these big, long, nasty chords he creates. But it all sounds acoustic.

The pieces in general are all reasonable examples of mid-century modernism. In commenting to me recently about power electronics noise groups, Adam MacGregor said that it's pretty tough to tell many of them apart from each other. I could say the same about so many of these post-war modernists, especially the more academic people. It's often pretty hard to distinguish them, even if I like the music moment-by-moment. While I'm willing to pursue someone's work I don't otherwise know, this attitude leads me to think that I should largely stick with the composers of that era who I already know and love. 

VOTD 5/14/2023

 Rolf Kühn: The Best Is Yet to Come, record one (MPS)

Purchased at the Strip District flea market from the vinyl guy

The 1970s were strange. I might have told this anecdote before. I was at the Electric Banana with Richard Schnap, and having an almost giddy conversation. "Didn't the 70s suck? Aren't things going to be so much better?"

Such optimism. 

It's not that I am nostalgic for that era, but in retrospect the 1970s were far more interesting than we credited then, and the 80s turned out much worse than expected. I was specifically thinking of the boom in independently produced and released music at the current time, and I'd say that was indeed positive. 

But the 1970s, generally the time of my favorite films (horror films in particular), the summer blockbuster popcorn movie had only just been invented and didn't dominate pop culture, more trips to the moon, my favorite era for Sun Ra, Miles Davis playing on billings with Steve Miller and Neil Young, Richard Nixon resigning (just imagine that now), Jimmy Carter getting elected. 

When I think of the 80s, I think of Reagan and the Reagan Revolution (whose neocon ancestors have basically led to Trumpism and QAnon), AIDS, Bush I, hedge funds, the era of greed. I can't complain too much though; I met my wife, and my daughter was born in the 1980s.

Skip to today. Beautiful day, flea market in the Strip District. The vinyl guy who's often at these things (I saw him yesterday on the street in Lawrenceville) was present, and this box set of LP reissues caught my attention. I know almost nothing about Rolf Kühn but assumed (correctly) he was Joachim Kühn's brother, who is prominent on these sessions. A few other names were listed I knew, most significantly Albert Mangelsdorff and Daniel Humair. Seven albums, two of them doubles. Reasonably priced. Okay, I bit. 

Rolf played clarinet and composed. That's a big draw for me. Clarinet was my first instrument, and I have been paying quite a bit of bass clarinet in recent years. I admire dedicated jazz clarinetists; Perry Robinson for example. It's especially interesting to hear the instrument in a more modern context.

 I chose the what turned out to be the second earliest recording (but earliest released?) on the collection, Total Space. From moment one, Bitches Brew and 70s Miles hangs over this session, in sound if not procedures. It's primarily a seven piece band, augmented by an (unnumbered) brass section. I'd put this half way between the Miles mentioned, and the funkier Maynard Ferguson arrangements of the time. More composed and big bandish than Miles, not as tightly commercial as Maynard.

Then there's the clarinet sitting on top as a featured but not dominating voice. It's strange. Much as I love the instrument, it just doesn't seem right in this context. I guess that's the 1970s for you.

Four of the five compositions were by Rolf, with Mangelsdorff contributing a single work, "Lopes". It's more free jazzish, looser and less thoroughly arranged than the rest of the album. It's pretty easily by favorite on the program. Rolf does manage to write a good groove, and the performances are solid throughout. 

But jazz rock big band clarinet? Mmm...maybe not. 

VOTD #2 5/12/2023

 Kryzysztof Penderecki: Magnifcat (Angel)

Purchased at Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

It's about 9:30pm as I begin writing this, and my wife is watching Great Performances upstairs. They're doing a salute to Broadway. Cue exit for Ben.

Oh, I don't mean to be a crank (even if I can't help myself sometimes), maybe there's something in it I might like, but it would mean sitting through a bunch I know won't appeal to me. 

So I'm back in my studio (mancave), and while I should still be cleaning the place up and spending more time on some compositions and audio projects I have started, I thought I'd spin this and note it here. If you read my previous post, you'd see that I'm continuing to question exactly why I'm doing this. Yes, there's the discipline and routine of it, and maybe there's an element of leaving a larger digital footprint. I've apparently committed to this tonight, we'll see what my attitude is tomorrow.

As I also wrote earlier today, my listening choices have skewed heavily on the "classical" side, though little of it is from the Baroque/Classical/Romantic eras. I hate the labels anyway; how do you have a section that encompasses George Crumb and Mozart? On the other hand, it is an interesting challenge to try to figure out what those composers might have in common. But then, I also feel every serious jazz composer (and many players) should spend time listening and reading Messiaen.

Penderecki's an interesting case. Even before really digging into the Duquesne collection at Jerry's, I had started to buy some of his recordings. His most famous work is surely Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, a sound piece for string orchestra. It would easy to look at that work and wonder if he was capable of doing anything else, as it (seemingly) lacks any traditional form or construction. I do find it to be an effective piece. 

On the other hand, I've listening to some of his chamber music, and found him to be a perfectly average, boring, academic composer. 

I haven't read up much on him. I seem to have collected a number of Catholic-inspired works: Dies Irae (Auschwitz Oratorio), Utrenja, The Entombment of Christ, The Psalms of David, Stabat Mater, Canticum Canticorum Salomonis, among others. A lot of choral/vocal music. 

I'm finding that Magnificat would be enough to convince me he's a good, interesting composer. I think the writing is very clear, even if the harmonies are dense. Listening to someone like Hans Werner Henze recently, I find her work interesting moment-to-moment, but don't always get a sense of the overall picture. Magnificat leads from one idea clearly. I hate to say simplicity, because there's nothing simple about the work. It's heavy on instrumental and vocal glissandi, and takes on an air similar to Ligeti's Requiem. A critical comparison of the two works could be interesting. (I don't know that I have it in me.)

Also similar to Ligeti, it's very dramatic. It doesn't sound like serialist processes set in motion. I admire the composers who explored that territory with dedication, but it also seems like something of a dead end. Sometimes I question how different those serialist works sound from one another.

It's another recording in my growing collection of vinyl that merits a return listen. So much time, so little to do! (Strike that, reverse it.) 

VOTD 5/12/2023

 Leo Ornstein: Danse Sauvage-Early Piano Music of Leo Ornstein (Orion)

Purchased at Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

I had a CD on hat Art titled The Bad Boys, a collection of piano works by George Antheil, Henry Cowell, and Leo Ornstein. I lent that and an LP of Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky playing two piano works by Ligeti and Zimmermann to a co-worker at CAPA. As might you have guessed, I never saw them again. Don't lend your stuff out.

Here's another one of my Duquesne U $3 bin buys. Again, the vinyl sounds unplayed. I've posed the question multiple times here, do people still play this composer's works? My guess is in this case, probably yes. For all his cluster voices, extended and polytonal harmonies, the works probably make more "sense" to the current ear than when these are composed. 

I had to do some research and spent a lot of time in issues of Musical Review (I think that was the name of the magazine) from the pre- through the post- WWI era, the period of these works. Ornstein's name came up multiple times. There was Ornstein the composer, described as a "musical futurist", not a compliment. Or begrudgingly: I think I remember "the best of the musical futurists" being written. But there was also Leo Ornstein the concert pianist, an up-and-comer in the scene. Add to that, Ornstein being wealthy and supporting concert series and possibly the magazine itself (there were ads he'd bought), and you can see even then how money influences what was written.

----

I continue to post to this blog, I don't know how much longer. I'm fearing it's largely a waste of time, but if so it's still a better wasting of time than sitting and watching TV. I've kept a running list of the artists I have written about here. It skews heavily on the so-called classical side, which has a lot to do with the recent cheap purchases I've been making at Jerry's. I'll keep at this for a while before I decide if I want to move on.

VOTD #2 5/11/2023

 Pharmakon: Devour (Sacred Bones)

Purchased through mail order via Bandcamp

I wasn't going to post again today, but this was dropped on my doorstep this afternoon. So here I am again.

I've chatted with Adam MacGregor (Brown Angel, Microwaves) about hard industrial and power electronics recordings. He's made the point that it needs to be or feel transgressive in some way. Like, something you're embarrassed to even own.

If you're truly going to explore the limits of "musical" creativity (and I do consider this to be music), then extreme subject matter and even presentation comes with the territory. It's possible of course to take things too far; as I've posted before, many of these sorts of groups flirt with fascist/Nazi imagery. In some cases I know it's not serious, and others I'm not so sure. In Adam's estimation, Whitehouse (one of the originators of power electronics) belongs in the comedy section, because you can't possibly take what they say seriously.

The first Pharmakon LP I bought was Contact, her (this is a one woman operation) previous LP. It's harrowing: pulsing, abrasive electronics and her voice, screaming and shrieking hellishly. I was impressed. I then bought her previous LP Bestial Burden, which has its moments but I found to be not nearly as intense. And I thought, well, maybe on great album is enough. 

Fast forward to last week, on Bandcamp Friday where certain fees are waved. In hunting around I found a listing for the most recent Pharmakon LP, and I decided I'd go for it. 

I think this one ups the ante from Contact, for two reasons. The first is that it was advertised as being live in the studio, making it the most immediate of her albums. The other is that I think it sounds just a bit grungier to me than that other albums, in an appropriate way. My criticism of Contact has been that it felt a little to clean, despite being as confrontational as it is. Listening to something like early Ramleh recordings for example, those tapes were just steeped in a lo-fi atmosphere that adds to the feeling of transgression. No matter how well digitally transferred those recordings are now, the analog comes through. Maybe my opinion will shift after more than one listening, but Devour sounds like it comes closer to that spirit.

By the way, when I opened the mailer, out fell two stickers that read, "You're the reason I feel dead". Far from being a deterrence, that just made me want to listen more. 

I bought the split black/white vinyl edition. I guess that's further away from that cassette dub to dub of original power electronics recordings, but I guess I'm a sucker for packaging like that.

VOTD 5/11/2023

 Hans Werner Henze: Sinfonia No. 6 for Two Chamber Orchestras (Deutsche Grammophon)

Purchased at Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

I thought this was another good find for $3. It is I suppose, and once again having come from the Duquesne collection, this is nearly or completely unplayed. 

What I didn't realize is that I have the collected Henze Symphonies/Sinfonia 1-6 on CD already, (I thought it was 1-5) and it's likely I've had this on before. It's the same performance; I don't assume this work has been recorded twice. The two-CD set cost me $3, once again proving that even at bargain prices, used CDs are generally most cost-effective than vinyl. 

I started looking up what Deutshe Grammophon has available these days. The label was deeply involved with released great quality European avant-garde in the 60s-70s. That is, in addition to standard lit and rep from Bach to Bartok. I suppose the same could maybe be said today. They're still occasionally releasing recordings by living composers, though I must admit I have no clue what their works sound like. I doubt it's the absolute weirdness of some of Stockhausen's DG LPs. I read that his double-LP Kurzwellen was the worst-selling title in their catalog. It is determinately strange, noisy music. Today it's highly collectable.

While not new, I was encouraged to see this box set having a scheduled release date: https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/p51-i0028948356775/various-artists/the-avantgarde-series/index.html

I have some of the LPs but the set, reasonably priced for 21 CDs, sounds like it's worth it.

I noticed that Roger Eno has released albums on the label. There's also an album by Moby that comes in six different collectable variants. Ugh. I know they're in it to sell product, I know they must sustain themselves, but that's just gross. If someone was to give me a copy of my choice, I'd take the double picture disc LP, just for defacement value.

It seems to me this Henze work in particular would be a far more impressive experience in the room live. If it's set for two chamber orchestras, surely there must be at least some spatial characteristic to the work that doesn't translate especially well to a stereo vinyl LP. Moment to moment it's sometimes very interesting, very colorful, but once again I wonder if it adds up to much for me. 

I've posed a question about several other composers on this blog: does anyone play Hans Werner Henze these days? What sort of legacy does he have? Has this era of post-war modernism and avant-garde become an historical curiosity? I'll be the first to admit it's challenging music, and maybe most people don't want challenges. Even I'm left cold sometimes, much as I support artists such as Henze. 

Yet here I am, spending forty minutes (plus writing time) with this piece of history. Maybe somebody needs to remember these things. But also, time for me to work on my own music too. 

VOTD #2 5/10/2023

 Robert Floyd: Plays New Music by Hans Werner Henze - Larry Austin (Advance Recordings)

Purchased at Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

It's now the evening on Wednesday; this morning I listened to the Jean Barraqué piano sonata; now it's more "new music" by Henze and Austin. I might have purchased something by those composers anyway (I also bought a Henze symphonic record) but it's the label that caught my attention.

Advance Recordings. I can't say I know much of anything about them, other than a few of their releases. It's one of those composers' labels from the 1960s-70s, of which I supposed CRI was the best known. CRI would brag that none of their releases go out of print. That is, until the label just couldn't sustain itself any longer. I'm guessing the CD boom probably helped do them in.

Or maybe...there was an optimism to this period, that this so-called new music had an audience, had a forum for release, that these labels had a purpose. How is music of this nature being released now? Is this an antiquated model?

Side one of this albums is two works by Hans Werner Henze. I really should read up more on him. I know he was leftist (as reflected in some of his works) and homosexual. His works sound like post-war modernism, probably somewhat serialist in nature. 

Larry Austin's works on side two start out sounding rather similar, but depart from that sort of European intellectualism, for moments starts to sound a little like Nancarrow, vaguely jazzy. I know improvisation plays into his works sometimes, though I doubt these are those. And I'm sure he wasn't trying to sound like jazz, it just comes out sometimes. Maybe it's just part of being an American composer. I know as a saxophonist, jazz is so connected to my instrument, that it's being suggested even at ties when I might not be suggesting jazz at all. There are of course many American composers who don't sound like they're referencing jazz. It's a part of our cultural heritage, so why not accept it?

This was a nice find in the wild. I don't hate the Henze, but it's the Austin side I'll definitely put on again.

VOTD 5/10/2023

 Jean Barraqué: Sonate pour Piano (Unicorn)

Purchased at Jerry's Records, from the Duquesne University collection

I've been teaching at Carnegie Mellon University for something like eighteen years. I teach music technology courses. When I tell that to someone and they sound impressed, I say, "It's not as impressive as it sounds." Most of what I teach is a fundamental music and audio technology: scoring, sequencing, recording; I also teach a technology in the music classroom to education majors, and an electronic music course.

There are some listening examples in the latter. Sometimes I've asked the student to find an historical example themselves and write about it.

I'm thinking of a student, last name possibly of Buide (or some variation, maybe it was his middle name). He chose for this assignment the single known work of electronic music by Jean Barraqué. This wasn't a name I knew. He told me that he chose Barraqué because they were both Spanish.

This LP turned up in the $3 Duquesne bins this week, so naturally I pounced on it. In looking up some basic, Wikipedia-level information on the composer, I read that he was French.

This leads me to this conclude these two possibilities: either he was wrong about Barraqué, or my memory is faulty. He was a good student, but how could I possibly remember all of these details correctly? And does that mean some of the "facts" I've written here are suspect due to the limitations and gaps in my memory banks?

There isn't much of Barraqué's work left. He destroyed his early works prior to this sonata, written in 1952 (but premiered years later). Compound that with dying at age 45, you have a composer with very few in-print works. His entire authorized compositional output is recorded on a three-CD set. One of the comments I've read is that this sonata is his one work to have real legs, to be performed occasionally and recorded several times.

Barraqué was a student of Messiaen, and the sonata is an example of post-war serialism. That could be one reason Boulez was a champion of the work. I always wonder, with these serialist works, where the hand of the composer becomes evident? If it involves creating a system you work through to compose the work, where are decisions made beyond creating the formula. Barraqué seems to bring a touch of the Romantic spirit, of lyricism, into what is rationalized music. 

The work seems to hang on pitch areas from time to time. I don't know of a better way to describe it. It's clearly not random (or serialized beyond all recognizable processes), the piece seems to have different compositional regions. There is a section in the middle of the first part (the work is defined as first and second parts) with pregnant pauses, one of the moments in the work that is naturally dramatic.

The pianist on this recording is Roger Woodward, who as I think I've written before was one of Morton Feldman's three pianists of choice. His name is larger than the composer's on the cover (due to length), but in grey lettering. It's a staggeringly difficult piece. Even the slower second part requires attention to the details of playing highly differentiated dynamics and attacks.

I might look up the score for this, it's available in both the public and university libraries. I'm uncertain what I'll gain from it, apart from looking at it and thinking, "Wow, Roger Woodward is really good."

VOTD 5/9/2023

 Kansas: Song for America (Kirshner)

Purchased in the Jerry's Bargain Basement

I learned something yesterday. I discovered that this blog has received a few responses over the years, and that I needed to authorize those messages for them to appear. So if you wrote and expected a reply, sorry! I'll check when I sign on hereafter.

One message caught my attention in particular, posted in response to my Stormy Six listening. I tend to not look back at what I've written here and almost treat this blog improvisationally. I must have written something about my history as a prog rock teen, because Chrome Dinette responded: "Is Kansas progressive rock or are they reactionary?"

I'm interpreting this message as being both serious and a joke, a play on words. Kansas was supposed to have been the big American prog rock group, a loosely-defined genre that is largely British, and European. What exactly even counts as prog is open to wide interpretation: Area (the Italian band) clearly is, but what of Etron Fou Leloublan? Is the King Crimson Discipline in the same overall category as the first KC LP? What of Mahavishnu Orchestra? Or more extreme possible offshoots of prog tendencies, such as Ruins, Molecules, or (dare I say it) Microwaves? Those three groups have unusual song forms and sometime irregular meters, two things in common with "traditional" prog rock. 

Looking at these thing in such a light, the definitions all start to break down, and that's fine by me. I want to be honest about what things are, but at the same time the labels mean little. Who really cares.

The first record I bought for myself was Kansas' Leftoverture. "Carry On My Wayward Son" was a big rock radio hit (and general pop charter). I was all of thirteen years old at the time, the perfect age to be impressed by that song. I spent a lot of time listening to that album.

I sold off my copy in a record purge when I must been 18-19. I reacted against all the bands I initially liked in junior/senior high school (no middle school for me), eschewed their work, went off to find other things. I've softened on my opinion on some of them; for example, I like Close to the Edge (the third LP I bought, by my recollection). 

Decades later, I bought up four Kansas LPs in what used to be the Jerry's Records Bargain Basement: dollar copies of Song for American, Leftoverture, Point of Know Return, Monolith, as well as ELP's Brain Salad Surgery and Works Vol. 1, and probably some other things too. 

And I listened. I didn't hate most of it. I know that's faint praise, but what do you expect? I'm not thirteen anymore. 

To return to Chrome Dinette's question: what came through listening to Kansas LPs was they didn't sound daring to me any longer. They're in many respects a traditional rock band, just with some prog rock dressing up. Kansas didn't seem bold or original any longer, though I'll give them credit for sounding like Kansas. 

This record is possibly the blues-iest of the bunch, with songs such as "Down the Road" and "Lonely Street". It's not necessarily what they do best. Though, they tend to be at their most embarrassing when they're at their most earnest: "Cheyenne Anthem" from Leftoverture is drippingly heartfelt, and it's too much. They have a flair for the dramatic though, as witnessed by "The Satan Game" and "Incomudro-Hymn to the Atman" demonstrate on this LP. 

The title song might be their single best moment. Catchy, and at ten minutes, not 7" single length. For all its length, it's a tight piece. Optimistic. The band largely sounds like a good ensemble. I think Steve Walsh was a good singer. There is a not-very-good drum solo towards the end of the second side, but as an ensemble player Phil Ehart is probably better than Carl Palmer (who I find to be very sloppy). 

Monolith was the beginning of the end of their height as a major act, with two big albums in between it and this. Bandleader, primary songwriter, and heavyweight instrumentalist would soon depart, having become a Born Again Christian. I guess Kansas was too secular for him. Bassist Dave Hope would soon follow, and there'd be breakups-reunitings on and off over some years.

And you know what? Who cares? Well, blah, I guess someone does. Don't accept my taste in anything. Kansas is on their 50th anniversary tour this year, with two original members: the drummer and rhythm guitarist. I'm sorry, but the two least essential people from the original group. I seriously doubt they're performing anything from Audio-Visions, Drastic Measures, or Power.

While I never owned a physical copy of this album as a teen (I did have a cassette dub, recorded off the radio), it takes me back to the time and place. Being a teenager, in Pleasant Valley, PA, thinking he's listening to something daring. Frankly I'm happy I'm not a teenager anymore. Who needs that. Time to put on other music. 

CDOTD 5/8/2023

 Anthony Braxton: Piano Music (Notated) 1968-1988 (hat ART) discs one and two

Purchased on sale from Cadence/North Country

I was frustrated for a long time with the meaning of Braxton's pictographic titles. What was the purpose? How were they related to the works? Was something deeper going on?

(This assumes the reader knows about this. Anthony Braxton gives the titles of each of his work some sort of picture or diagram as a title instead of the traditional words.)

Eventually I figured some things out, made some realizations. 

What do you name something when you aren't drawing inspiration from anything extramusical, and there are no lyrics involved? I have to deal with this often. One of my solutions is to lean towards the absurd: pieces named for tools ("Power Strip", "Scroll Saw", "Torque Wrench", "Duck Bill Hammer") or elements and compounds ("Boron", "Carbon 60", "Ammonium", "Magnesium").  The Braxton pictographic titles take this idea much further, removing extramusical meaning altogether (at least in his early works). 

I'm sure in some cases, the titles are an intuitive response to the energy and shape of each piece. Anthony himself I think would say there's a connection, but I've studied enough of the works to say that I don't find a direct connection with the forms and the visuals. 

Once he started creating the titles, I think it became a system unto itself. That is, what makes an Anthony Braxton work? One thing is that he titles his pieces in a novel manner. If you make a title of a work that looks like a diagram, it inherently refers back to Braxton.

The titles themselves have developed over time, and sometimes you can tell approximately the time it was created by the appearance of the title. The earliest as spare, a few letters, numbers, connecting lines, and such. The graphics of the titles became more elaborate in the 70s and 80s, taking on simulated 3D qualities. This later led to works that looked like an illustration, and were connected to some sort of actual narrative story. In the 1990s during the era of the first Ghost Trance Musics series, he started cutting out pictures and collaging them into the titles. It's an ongoing story.

And then finally, why not? Why not title pieces in this way? Why do titles have to be words? And why did it bother me at one time that I didn't understand it? There's actually not that much to understand. 

I bought this when there was a big clearance sale of hat Art CDs from North Country. They were generally a new-jazz label, often focusing on European artists. For a time they were releasing classical/avant-garde recordings: a lot of Morton Feldman, Giacinto Scelsi, John Cage, the "Bad Boys" (Ornstein, Antheil, Cowell), all very high quality. I don't know, maybe they didn't sell well, and then they funding from UBS Bank dried up. 

This four CD set collects Braxton's piano-specific compositions, three pieces from the late 1960s, four from the mid 1970s, and a single piece from 1988. The earliest is in fact his Opus 1, the only work in his catalog without a pictographic title ("Piano Piece No. 1") from 1968. These early works (#s 1, 5, 10) find Anthony using elements of modernist language, but his methods are not methodical in the manner of someone like Milton Babbitt. There's no tonality, fleeting suggestions of melody only to be wiped away, often many wide intervallic jumps. While they are compositions in a fixed state, they resemble improvisations that have been captured. 

Composition 16 from 1971 is set for four pianos. I don't know the score, but I doubt it's traditionally notated. Braxton moves further away from the idea of lines here, and more towards textures and densities. There are areas of group trills/tremolos, some percussive sounds, some inside the piano playing. 

The second disc and most of discs three and four are taken up by the mid-70s piano works, compositions # 30-33. I'd have to look up Anthony's mission statement regarding his music, but he has in so many words say, any piece may be played by any instrument, any speed, in any combination or separately. If you know his body of work, this idea works much more effectively than others: his relatively famous march from the Creative Music Orchestra 1978 where this wouldn't so much be the case. I don't know when that statement was made, it seems made for these piano pieces. Indeed, Marilyn Crispell frequently used the as collage materials in the great mid-80s quartet. 

It's hard to say that there's an essential difference between compositions 33 and 30 on disc two; there's a high emphasis on tone clusters throughout the 30 piano series. 30 seems to be more difficult (I'd even say very difficult to play correctly), higher energy, more virtuosity. But they're of a similar nature in general. 

I'm happy this document exists, and yet, forty-two minutes of composition 30? And 31 taking up all of disc four? It's more than anyone needs as a standalone performance. But there it is. Here is Braxton the composer, in his unfettered form, take it or leave it. Another piece of the puzzle filled in.

VOTD 5/7/2023

 Iannis Xenakis: Oresteia (Musical Heritage Society)

Purchased at Jerry's Records. Not from the Duquesne University collection this time.

I've been at this blog nearly steadily since late December, and I'm wary about something. I think sitting and writing is a positive thing, and I think I'm becoming aware of some of my bad habits. Adding unnecessary amplifiers would be one: "pretty good" instead of just "good," for example. I don't know if it is all coming to nothing, having just turned sixty and never seriously written anything outside of school assignments.

The part of this that concerns me is only writing about me. It's one thing if my intention is to provide thoughts and perhaps review recordings, partly with the intention of making better use of my library of records and CDs. When I start throwing in anecdotes, personal history, and facts I just happen to know, it's the alarms on my ego that start to sound, virtually saying, "What makes you think you're so interesting? Why are you always writing about yourself?"

I recognize that I've spent two paragraphs leading to that point. 

I'll belabor it further. I'm thinking of an old friend, with whom my contact current is only on Facebook. When he decides to respond to a posting, it's usually to the effect of, "I drove that band around in 1987" or "I met that person in 1985" or something similar. It would be far more annoying if it wasn't just Facebook and easily ignored. (I'm resisting going into more details in the unlikely event someone figures out who I'm writing about.) When I see myself doing something similar, I don't like it.

There are stories about Xenakis I've told many times. I mentioned his name when being interviewed for an oral history of Carnegie Mellon recently. Iannis was the first guest artist to appear on the CMU campus during my first year of college. At the time I didn't fully understand the significance. 

Xenakis' name became some of a running joke among some of my classmates that year. The CMU music department leans on the conservative side on the whole. I probably joked about him too, though I was intrigued enough that within a month or two of his appearance, I bought a used Xenakis LP at the Record Graveyard up the street from campus. I still have it. 

I've come to admire Xenakis and his music. I surely must have recordings of the majority of his works. Some of his orchestral music is so strident, it borders on the ridiculous. It sometimes feel like he's corralling physical forces more than composing. There are works I find to be quite dry, often the early algorithmic works calculated by computer. But even then, JACK Quartet proved on their recording of ST4 that a lively performance can add much to a dry work. 

I came across this record at Jerry's today. I haven't double checked, but I don't think it's a piece I have in my collection otherwise. It's an odd one, though compared to what? It is listed as being a "Suite for Ensemble of 12 Instrumentalists, Mixed Chorus and Children's Choir." I will confess to not having read the liner notes, so I'm speculating that it's something like an oratorio: operatic but never intended to be staged. 

It's vague, but this work seems to harken more to ancient music. Perhaps it's the use of chanting, perhaps the classical Greek themes: movements are titled "Agamemnon", "Choephores (Libation Bearers", and "Eumenides". Xenakis was very interested in classical Greek history and culture, and this piece maybe comes closest to....I'm not certain how to express it, drawing on that energy? Finding a more direct inspiration from those sources? In that respect, it's nice to have on hand because the work fills in a piece of Xenakis' overall canon. 

It's the second work of his I've heard using children's choir. Was it by choice or commission? I'm inclined to believe the later. The other work, Polla Ta Dhina, has the choir intoning a single pitch while a chaos of instruments roils beneath. 

This one was released on Musical Heritage Society. It was an interesting label, mail order I understand. Most of the MHS releases I've seen have been early music, Bach, Haydn, and the like, standard classical fare if leaning on the early side. But there's also a 20th century wing so to speak: an album of Ondes Martenot, a Messiaen playing Messiasen double LP, several albums of Sorabji, even a CD of Conlon Nancarrow ensemble pieces. Interesting. It's like Nonesuch in some ways, which was a good label for cheap standard lit & rep recordings but also had a modern line with some vanguard releases (not to mention the international albums, too). 

I bought so much at the dollar sale, but I couldn't pass up on Iannis. I might go back for more out of the $3 bins too....*sigh*

VOTD 5/5/2023

 Sinoia Caves: Beyond the Black Rainbow OST (Jagjaguwar/Death Waltz)

I don't recall where and how I purchased this.

Over the years I've become something of a film soundtrack buff. It's a personal....journey?...that's too cliched but I suppose accurate. It's not that I hated soundtrack music at one time. It bugged me though, whenever people heard instrumental music of any sort, they'd describe it in terms of being soundtrack-like. This would come to be true of music I would write too. It wondered, is this the only way many can relate to music without vocalists? By thinking of it as being linked to visual imagery?

I've always enjoyed cinema, that was not at issue. Some of the music I had started writing in my younger days was inspired by particular directors. Something that led me to pay more specific attention to soundtrack music as its own medium was hearing Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Philharmonic's 1996 CD of selections from Bernard Herrmann. By and large I now prefer hearing the original artifact, but it remains a particularly good collection. It's also a strong argument that many of the works would stand up in a concert hall alongside more traditional symphonic fare. 

I became interested in several ideas: what music written for film is able to stand alone without the visuals? Herrmann's music largely stands up when played apart from the film. I'd even say, having heard some of his non-cinema concert music, his film scores are better. By contrast, Howard Shore's score for The Silence of the Lambs works beautifully with the film, but isn't particularly interesting to me when played by itself. This is not a knock on Mr. Shore, for whom I probably have more respect than any other living film composer. I sometimes also wonder, does the music ever overwhelm the imagery?

I've also become interested in who is writing music for cinema, and can their pieces be reinterpreted? There are those composers known mostly or exclusively for cinematic scores: Herrmann, Morricone, Franz Waxman, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, etc. And what of those composers better known in other fields who have created film scores? Herbie Hancock, Prokofiev, Copland, Zappa, Takemitsu, for example. And of that general list, who's done just that one or two great scores? 

Between both cinematic composers and the latter list of part-timers, whose work can I transcribe arrange, reinterpret, and perform? I've transcribed and arranged a number of pieces from film scores for my band OPEK: Gato Barbieri's waltz version of Last Tango in Paris; David Shire's main title theme to Taking of Pelham 123; the "Sacred Spring" song from the original Godzilla Vs. Mothra by Akira Ifukube. The latter is one of my favorites in the OPEK book, in part because it's from such an unlikely source that nobody ever guesses. 

One of my unrealized projects for OPEK was a program of pieces entirely written for film. I wanted some degree of multimedia, with images from the films projected as we played those cues. The pieces would have all been required to have been written for the film medium, no songs that originate from Broadway, such as West Side Story. "Stella by Starlight" would qualify though, having originated from the film The Uninvited starring Ray Milland. In addition to the pieces mentioned above, I would have had to arrange some Herrmann and Morricone. One of Ian Gordon's favorite works is the theme from Get Carter, so no doubt that would be been considered. Furthermore, I would have loved to get some Jerry Fielding on the program too. Born Joshua Feldman in Squirrel Hill, there's our Pittsburgh connection to major film scores. I'd think about Steve Moore for the same reason. 

But....like I wrote, unrealized. There were some people interested by not enough to get something happening, no support, I don't know how I'd make it happen.

When I bought this LP. I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen the film. I have since. I'd regard it as flawed but worth seeing. There's an institute, it's New Age-y, there's a girl kept there who can apparently make people's head explode a la Scanners, there's a weird doctor/therapist. Not all of it made sense.

I like the music though! Very minimal-prog keyboard oriented. Steve Moore comes to mind here, not quite Tangerine Dream-ish, vaguely similar to Italians like Goblin and Fabio Frizzi. 

I like Death Waltz releases but it's an expensive habit. I've just looked up their site (mondoshop.com) and they're taking pre-orders on a vinyl issue of the Planet of the Vampires LP. It looks beautiful. I like the movie but don't remember the soundtrack. It's $35. I can afford it, but with so many LPs, so many I need to get around to listening to, do I want to spend the money that way? It'll pop up at The Attic most likely, in which case I'll decide then.

VOTD 5/3/2023

 Aribert Reimann: Requiem (EMI)

Purchased from Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

Another day, another "classical" selection. Not that anyone's read my previous two postings as of this writing. I'll get onto something else tomorrow. I've promised myself that I'd spend no less time every day on something musical as I do listening to the albums and writing these missives. 

This is my third time listening to this piece, and it's one of the reasons I've been taking in requiems in general. I found this in the Duquesne $3 apiece boxes at Jerry's. I very well might have passed it over; the composer's name was unknown to me. I noticed he was a post-war German composer, and figured it was worth a $3 gamble. Like most of the Duquesne vinyl I've bought, I don't know that anyone every listened to it before me, it sees unplayed.

This work is pretty strong stuff. Yes it's highly modernist but I don't know that it crosses over into true serialism. I tried to secure a copy of the score through an interlibrary loan, to no avail. I like looking over scores but truth be told, I don't analyze them carefully. I like the riff in the opening, to use some decidedly non-classical terminology.

I attended a talk Dr. Paul Miller gave at Duquesne recently, about the Mozart Requiem. He made the point that the "Dies Irae" was intended to be a vision of hell. Maybe? Reimann at least has the tools and resources to come closer to that ideal. His "Dies Irae" is in indeed nightmarish, pounding and hellish at times. It's also the longest section of this work, and central to the work itself.

Googling Reimann's name, he came up as an accompanist often, to vocalists. He seems to have written quite a bit of vocal music: some lieder, and numerous operas, the most well known being Lear. (I have a copy of that work I've bought from Jerry's, too, pretty cheap.) He's also won a number of prestigious wards in Europe. Yet I knew nothing of him before buying this album. 

I'm reminded of the fact that I don't like the wide vibrato, broadly sung operatic style on modernist works in general. Actually, I don't like the style period, but on works such as this I particularly dislike it. The choral parts blend fine on the recording, as they should. It's when the solo vocalists step up that I don't care for the style so much. I can see the place for such a style of singing in Verdi or Wagner, but not so much for a work of this era (1982).

Why write a requiem? What does that even mean in the modern age? While not sounding 18th century (or even earlier), the form of this work is still derived from the liturgical requiem. Should we do away with old forms, as many of the post-war avant-garde believed? Or can we find new life in old structures?

Like Mozart, this is not intended to performed as a church mass. But why not? Most of Messiaen's music as some Catholic subtext. I've often said, if more church music sounded like Messiaen, maybe I'd go more often. But even then I'd be going for the music and not the church.

I suppose staging a work for chorus, moderate sized orchestra (with no violas) and vocal soloists might be nearly impossible in a church setting. This is music meant to be felt though. I don't care if it's alienating to many of the church-going audience. It would be amazing.

VOTD 5/2/2023

 Chopin: All the Works for Piano and Orchestra (Vox Box) record 1

Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale

More cleaning up in my studio/man cave, more pushing through classical albums recently purchased.

Sides one and two of this set is Chopin's "Concerto No. 1 in E Minor." I like Chopin, to the surprise of some. But I prefer the introspective Chopin, the one who wrote the Preludes. The lushness of this work in a way makes it more anonymous to me, less distinctively his work.

Morton Feldman was always interesting when he spoke of pre-20th century, pre-avant garde music. To paraphrase regarding Chopin's music: the music would float around beautifully, and then he'd stick an artificial-sounding cadence on the end. Morty must have surely been referring to the Preludes specifically.

I wonder what this sounding like to the people who heard it when it was current? To my ears it's just not that significantly different than a lot of 19th, or even to some extent late 18th century music. Lusher than the latter to be sure, but still, it all sounds like a bygone period. 

Did this piece sound fresh? Was it mainstream or a little daring? Unusual? Delicate? Exciting or the same old thing? Did people generally take to it?

I could definitely be wrong about this, but I don't often see Chopin concerti on the programs of major orchestras. I can't say this is bad, but maybe also doesn't stand apart the way his best solo piano music does.

I have an affection for these old Vox Box collections, even if I only ever owned one or two at most before. They were a cheap way to build a personal classical record library, at a budget price.

Quadraphonic stereo compatible!

VOTD 5/1/2023

 Alban Berg: Chamber Music (Deutsche Grammophon)

Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale

We've seen this relatively recent resurgence of vinyl records. I'll repeat myself on this point: it used to be that if you wanted a cheap way to hear an album, you'd try to track down a vinyl copy; the CD issue (even used) was more expensive. Now the opposite is true. 

But what of classical vinyl? I don't think the demand for classic recordings on vinyl records ever bounced back that way that rock and jazz records have. There are of course many, many exceptions to this. I think that the listenership for classical (whatever that word even means) has looked forward: vinyl to CD to streaming and DVD audio, and hasn't looked back as much.

It's hardly a secret that I enjoy vinyl, I like collecting records. There is one drawback however: the size and weight of them. A few records don't weight much or take up much space. When you start getting into hundred or thousands, it's a pretty big commitment of space and a huge effort to move.

I bought several big box sets at the recent Jerry's dollar sale. $1 for single issues, $2 for box sets, and half price if you went Sunday. It's probably a good thing I didn't. There was a large section of classical-only vinyl in the back of the room, and for part of the time I was the only person digging through them. One person who was looking asked me for my classical recommendations. I said something to the effect of, "I wouldn't hoist my opinion on anyone."

It's funny, I never studied the works of the so-called Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) very closely. Yet, I've recently bought quite a bit of Schoenberg on the cheap, plus this beauty. 

Deutsche Grammophon. It's a pretty good guarantee that the recording quality will be excellent, the performances great, even the pressing very good. This one delivers on all three accounts. You have Pierre Boulez conducting Ensemble InterComtemporain and Pinchas Zukerman on violin, not mentioned the less familiar names (to me) Daniel Barenboim on piano and Antony Pay on clarinet.

What of the music? Berg definitely sounds like a post-Romantic, the music hinting at triadism without crossing over more than fleetingly. But I don't know, sometimes works such as these seem energetic and interesting in the moment but don't add up in the end.

It's interesting, going back to the quality of pressing. The work on the first side, "Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with 13 Instruments" is just shy of thirty minutes in length. How does DG do that? It's not the only record on the label I have that hits that length. It's a length that pressing plants advise against, or might even refuse in some cases. Yet it sounds great, there's no issue with stylus skating on the surface, and I don't notice any obvious distortion at the end of the side. (Maybe a tiny bit on the loudest passage at the end, but even then I'm not certain.)

And ah, the cover. Zukerman, Barenboim, and Boulez looking 1970s, with the dramatic head shot of Berg on the back, looking all the Romantic artist/genius. Almost worth the $1 paid alone.