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.
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