It’s been a while but don’t worry – I’ve not vanished permanently, only temporarily. Been attending various conferences on music, theology and Eastern Europe, thinking a lot about the relationship of aesthetic and historical, and calculating that Argentina are only the 5th most likely team to reach the World Cup semis (England are the 6th). (You heard it here first.)
So how’s you?
I received an email this weekend about a musical charity event taking place across England next month – the Extreme Cello Cathedral Roof Tour. A trio of cellists are undertaking to play on the roof (or as high up as health and safety will let them) of all England's 42 cathedrals in the course of just 12 days. Think of it as a version of the Three Peaks Challenge, but with 42 'peaks' and added bulky string instruments… The whole thing is in aid of Shelter and Aspire; Londoners can catch the group about midway through their tour at Southwark (27th July) and St Paul's (28th).
No word on repertoire as yet, but a suite from Fiddler on the Roof seems essential, with possibly Stockhausen's Helicopter Quartet in case of emergency rescue…
Fairly sparse stuff this week.
Billy Bragg says MySpace exploits musicians.
The Guardian has a nice article on the UK experimental music scene.
And there was the launch of a new CD swap site that aims to give back to struggling artists: Lala.com allows fans to trade CDs for just $1, plus shipping, and pledges to give a fifth of its sales to all the musicians, including session players, involved in the making of those records. Sounds like a nice idea.
del.icio.us/skills/obituary | About this list
Although Ligeti was obviously the headline this week, we also must bid farewell to the following members of the musical community:
:: Peter Kennedy Folk music collector
:: Joseph Dorfman Musicologist and composer
:: Hiroyuki Iwaki Conductor
:: Cy Coben Country songwriter
:: Margaret MacArthur Ethnomusicologist of American Northeast folk music
:: Lula Mae Hardaway Stevie Wonder’s mum, and co-writer on several songs
:: Jennifer Eley-Handler Pianist
:: Naushad Ali Bollywood composer
Rest in Peace.
Something a bit special here. Or at least I hope so.
Below you’ll find links to a mix that I’ve been working on, on and off, for the last few months. I’ve long wondered what a fully mixed set of avant classical would actually sound like, and even if it was possible at all. However, although I know of plenty of DJs who drop classical works (of whatever stripe) into their sets every now and then, I’ve yet to come across any that do so for more than a couple of tracks at a time. (If anyone has any pointers or recommendations though, I’d love to hear them.)
So, I figured I’d give it a bash myself. Even though I don’t own any decks, or even any proper mixing software, and have never done any mixing before. The whole thing was done in Audacity, with no pitch changes, tempo changes, and only minimal edits and fades. I’m quite pleased with this side of it, although at points I think some more sophisticated EQ tools might have been handy. (The ogg version by the way sounds much better in this respect than the mp3.) And there’s a minor glitch about 4 minutes in that I wish I could be bothered to get rid of.
Although I didn’t start out with any rules, a set of guidelines for myself did evolve. Because I wanted to wanted to prove something to myself – that it was possible to mix with a certain kind of flow using avant garde concert music – I tried to avoid heavily rhythmic minimalism, etc, which would have been easy and not entirely original. So amongst the composer names there’s some compromise to approachability, but not much. The fact that the only nonclassical tunes are all early-90s shoegazy stuff is pure coincidence and more a reflection on my personal tastes and the sort of widely resonant spaces that started to come out of the mix as I was putting it together than any starting plan. At one point I did have Messiaen’s Et exspecto… pushed up alongside ‘Reduction’ by postpunkers Material to surprisingly funky effect, but I couldn’t quite get it to work in the mix.
The two files (the same thing, in ogg and mp3) are on YouSendIt, so they’ll be valid for 7 days or 25 downloads each. If there’s a big demand I might re-up them at some stage. Please leave feedback!
Long Shadows – avant-classical mix by Rambler
1. Meredith Monk – Long Shadows 1
2. György Ligeti – Cello Concerto, 1st mvt
3. Terry Riley – In the Summer
4. Alvin Lucier – I am Sitting in a Room
5. Ride – Nowhere
6. Gerard Grisey – Partiels
7. Chas Smith – October ‘68
8. György Kurtág – Stele, 3rd mvt
9. Arvo Pärt – Solfeggio
10. Arne Nordheim – Solitaire
11. Gabriel Prokofiev – String Quartet no.1 (Max de Wardener remix)
12. Slowdive – Souvlaki Space Station
13. Dead Voices on Air – Funfundsiebzig
14. Dave Seidel – Sublimation
15. Morton Feldman and John Cage in conversation
16. Morton Feldman – Rothko Chapel
17. Curve – Hung Up
18. Meredith Monk – Long Shadows 2
mp3 | ogg
Update: ANAblog have generously uploaded the mp3 version to their hosting service, so once the YouSendIt links expire you can get your copies here.
Update 2: The mix is now uploaded as an mp3 to Rapidshare – click here. And I know Rapidshare (as a free service at least) can be a bit buggy – to say the least – but take my advice: invest a few quid in a monthly pass. All downloading bugs disappear, you’re not locked into any sort of contract with Rapidshare, and with the number of out-of-print albums populating Rapidshare at the moment you can go download crazy for next to nothing.
Update 3: You might also be interested in the mix I did for Blogariddims; available here.
Update 4: Uploaded once more at Megaupload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SXXLATXH
At the end, however, though the elemental conflict is not resolved or overcome, fear is dispelled and there is a calm acceptance of fate. In the grey morning light of the Lacrimosa time dawns upon another world, far away from all human consciousness or history.
from Ove Nordwall’s review of the premiere in Stockholm of Ligeti’s Requiem.
Between the Requiem, Lux aeterna, and Le Grand Macabre, death haunted much of Ligeti’s most well-known music. And around the time of the Requiem’s first appearance in 1965 the composer also described Atmosphères and Volumina as ‘kinds of Requiems’, a view that took a certain hold amongst commentators – notably Nordwall and Harold Kauffman – for several years subsequently. His memorial notice at Schott music concludes noting his desire ‘to fuse the fear of death with laughter’.
So in the grey morning light how has death left Ligeti? As the obituaries keep coming in, several themes are beginning to coalesce.
The importance of Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey seems paramount. Almost every obituary mentions it, many in their headlines, but confusion still persists over Ligeti’s role in the film. Several sources still apparently believe that Ligeti was a willing participant in Kubrick’s appropriation – the AP writes of ‘his work on the soundtrack’, the Guardian ‘his contribution to the soundtrack’, and the Washington Post that he ‘worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey’. The composers at Sequenza have even written an open letter to the AP complaining about the misinterpretation here. Fortunately, the rest of the press is up to speed with the story that has been common knowledge since 1973 that Ligeti was not involved in the decision to include his music on the soundtrack, and that any associations with space etc are Kubrick’s and not the composer’s.
Although there is an understandable emphasis on his earlier works composed in the West, up to and including Le Grand Macabre, it is notable that many of his later works – especially the Piano Etudes – gain a mention. Unlike Berio, for example, whose profile at his death was not evenly spread across his career, Ligeti maintained interest in his music across his entire oeuvre.
The curiosities in his output – the car horn prelude to Le Grand Macabre, Poème symphonique, the rude noises and crashing tea sets of Aventures and Nouvelles aventures – are frequently noted, good copy that they are. Where this sort of thing (you only have to consider Cage’s infinitely more serious 4′33″) can spell certain ridicule for a composer in the eyes of the public, Ligeti has got away with it, and these aspects of his work are treated with all reverance. Poème symphonique – originally a risky joke hurried out to meet a commission – did indeed take on a life of its own, and is hailed throughout the obits as an expressive example of his ‘absurdist streak’ (Boston Globe), an exploration of ‘theories of time and space, of chance and determinacy’ (LA Times), a progression from his technique of micropolyphony (Telegraph), and ‘his style pared to its essence … The sight and sound of the metronomes stretched across the platform of the Usher Hall, their tony complexities of rhythm gradually winding down, their ticking finally a soft symbol of death, was curiously touching and forlorn’ (Herald).
Several of the press obituaries note that Ligeti was an avant gardist who found rare popularity – whether thanks to Kubrick or not – and this view is backed up by the more personal view of some bloggers. Among ten reasons to value Ligeti and his output, Do the Math notes his quality as a gateway composer: ‘Ligeti is the most unpretentious and appealing entrance to the recalcitrant cavern of Dissonant Classical Music’; Robert Gable of aworks simply acknowledges, ‘Through Ligeti (and Reich), I learned the rewards of contemporary music’. Mike of Avant Music News writes of his continuing admiration for Ligeti’s ‘ability to create compositions that are dense, dissonant and yet ultimately listenable’. Myself, I think it is the obscurity of Ligeti’s music that was always its greatest strength; its wilful difference from prevailing trends (and whether you regard Ligeti as a leader or a follower – and he was in large parts both – his music was always created from a constructed opposition), its difficulty, its bar by bar reluctance to do what you wanted it to, to fall into a pleasing, or even comfortable pattern – all of these things created a music that teases you into interpreting it and made space for a fully free interpretation. As a Ronaldinho stepover is to full backs, so are Ligeti’s notes to the ear. How else to explain the wide variety of reactions to his Requiem, for example? Paul Griffiths’ change of heart about the piece since first hearing it in London in 1970 are the most marked – then, it was limited to ‘its initial gloomy effect’; since, he has described it as ‘massively solemn and hysterically funny, or massively funny and hysterically solemn’ (Times review from 1983), and in his New York Times obituary he suggests that the work was a response to death as ‘both ominous certainty and black joke’. This was the quality of his music that Kubrick felt he could use, and while it invites facile interpretation, it does account for some of the enduring popularity of his music. Although, if this I Love Music thread is anything to go by, that popularity should be stated with caution, much of his music outside of 2001 remaining relatively unknown.
In the end, Ligeti’s reputation – not least because of the twists and turns that remain after his death – is obviously assured. Was he our greatest living composer? That depends on your definition of greatness of course, but all the pieces are there – many substantial biographies in several languages, a complete recorded edition, all those interviews, an enthralling life story (the escape from Budapest in 1956), popular acclaim, the film tie-ins – for him to be one of the most enduring. Match all this to music that is frequently of the very highest standard and future generations are likely to hold him alongside perhaps only Stravinsky as the greatest of the 20th century.
Publishers:
:: Schott
Press:
:: Canadian Press
:: CNN
:: Boston Globe
:: BBC – Obituary
:: Playbill Arts
:: LA Times
:: New York Times
:: Independent
:: The Times
:: Guardian
:: Telegraph
:: Washington Post
:: The Herald
:: Gramophone
:: Financial Times
Blogs:
:: Do the Math
:: Mahler’s Glasses
:: Anablog
:: aworks
:: Kittensnake
:: Overgrown Path
:: playtherecords
:: Felsenmusick
:: Alex Ross
:: cribnotes
:: Avant Music News
:: Jacob Sudol
:: ionarts
:: Blogcritics
Other:
:: Pitchfork
:: AllMusic
:: NewMusicBox
The news is just breaking on AP and around the world – György Ligeti, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, has died.
Much more on Ligeti to come – half of my thesis revolves around this composer, after all, and I've spent most minutes of the last 6 months thinking about his Requiem. But for now, dig out the music and remember a major talent.
Garry Fung makes an excellent suggestion in a comment on my Stravinsky/Rite of Spring/YouTube post – why doesn’t someone collect together all the classical music stuff on YouTube. Well, most of that falls outside the boundaries of this blog; there is also a lot of it, and not all of it terribly worth watching. But I am going to start listing here those video gems of contemporary classical music that I come across. Similarly to my classical music mp3 blog post this should be regarded as a post in constant process, and hardly definitive. I’m also not going to just start posting all the results of searches that I find, but only links to those videos that are most interesting or unusual. Things that won’t get posted: incomplete works (on the whole); stuff that’s poor quality in some way; videos in which the music accompanies another film (except in exceptional circumstances).
So, here you go: the Rambler’s ongoing guide to the best of contemporary classical music on YouTube.
(Updated, 8 Feb 2007, to put things in alphabetical order by composer)
Barrett – knospend-gespaltener. Played by Richard Haynes.
Berberian – 1972 Italian documentary on Cathy Berberian, also featuring plenty of Berio. In five parts, the first of which includes Cathy singing Berio’s arrangement of ‘Ticket to Ride’. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Berio – Sequenzas. Several of these on YouTube: III (unknown singer, but awesome); IV (Luciane Cardassi); V (Dave Day); VIIb (Yang Tong); XI – part 1, part 2 (Paul Bowman)
Birtwistle – Gawain. No music here, but the footage of people arguing in the street about the values of modernism vs romanticism is priceless.
Boulez – Le marteau sans maître – movements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8, 9, played by Ensemble X1234 (?)
Boulez – Le soleil des eaux. PB conducts Elizabeth Atherton, the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC SO.
Boulez – Piano Sonata no.1. Played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
Cage – 4′33″. This is the performance for full orchestra by the BBC SO that caused a stir at the John Cage: Uncaged festival in 2004. Also, here’s an extract from the video I have nothing to say and I am saying it of preparations for a 1982 performance of Speech for 5 radios. And if that’s not enough, how about David Tudor playing 4′33″? But the winner is this performance of Water Walk given on the 1960s gameshow ‘I have a secret’. Internet, I love you.
More Cage – Luciane Cardassi plays In a Landscape; James Tenney plays Sonata I and Sonata VII for prepared piano.
Cassidy – Being itself a catastrophe the diagram must not create a catastrophe (or, Third Study for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion). Played by Richard Haynes and Peter Veale. Part I, II.
Curran – Schtyx. Courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In four parts: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Dusapin – Etudes. Number 1, played by Ian Pace: part 1, part 2. Number 4, Pace again. Number 6, played by Angela Tosheva.
Eötvös - Triangel, Peter Prommel, soloist.: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
Ferneyhough – Bone Alphabet. Played by Ross Karre: part 1, part 2.
Ferneyhough - Carceri d’Invenzione IIb, played by Julian Elvira.
Glass – Rubric. The Philip Glass Ensemble. Get this one quick as copies are being pulled off YouTube at Universal’s behest.
Glass – Train/Spaceship (Einstein on the Beach). Part 1; part 2.
Globokar – Touché, played by Laurent Clement.
Grisey – Vortex Temporum I, part 1, part 2, played by the Quasars Ensemble (performance preceded by what I take to be an arrangement of Bach’s Prelude in E minor from Book I of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier).
Harada – Bone #. Courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In two parts: 1, 2.
Hespos - Casoleia, played by Elena Casoli.
Hespos – Santur, played by Eniko Ginzery.
IRCAM – not a composer, of course, but a great video from the 1984 ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) at IRCAM in Paris, showing MIT’s Barry Vercoe and flautist Larry Beauregard of Boulez’ Ensemble Intercomtemporain demonstrating the use of the computer as a synthetic performer.
Kagel – Acustica. Played by Apartment House at The Wire’s Cut and Splice event in 2005.
Kagel – Der Eid des Hippokrates. Played by András Hamary, Markus Bellheim and Armin Fuchs.
Kagel – Dressur. Played by Oberlin Percussion. Part 1, 2, 3, 4.
Kagel – Les idées fixes I. RSO Saarbrucken conducted by the composer. No video, just the music.
Kagel – siegfriedp. Played by its dedicatee. No video, just the music.
Kurtág – ‘Perpetuum Mobile’, from the Játékok piano pieces. Played by the composer, this is pretty essential.
Kurtág – Hommage à Mihály András No visuals, just the Keller Quartet’s recording.
Lachenmann – Grido. Played by the Arditti Quartet, uploaded in three parts: 1, 2, 3.
Lachenmann – Intérieur I, played by Pitzu Yang, part 1, part 2.
Ligeti – Poème symphonique. The first televised ‘performance’ of Ligeti’s infamous prank for 100 metronomes that has since taken on a credible life of its own.
Ligeti – Artikulation. Rainer Wehinger’s pioneering visual score to Ligeti’s electronic piece, synchronised together.
Ligeti – Piano Etude no.13 ‘L’Escalier du Diable’. Played in concert by Francesco Libetta.
More Ligeti Etudes – Volker Banfield plays pieces from Books 1 and 2: no.1 ‘Désordre’, no.2 ‘Cordes vides’ and no.3 ‘Touches bloquées’; no.4 ‘Fanfares’ and no.5 ‘Arc-en-ciel’; no. 7 ‘Galamb Borong’ and no.8 ‘Fém’. Number 6, the famous ‘Automne à Varsovie’ appears to have been skipped over, disappointingly, but the captions on YouTube suggest that there’s a fourth part to this recital yet to be posted, so fingers crossed. Here it is: no.6 ‘Autumne à Varsovie’.
Lucier – Music for Solo Performer. Alvin Lucier’s famous work for human brainwaves. Andrew Brouse is the man with the electrodes taped to his head in this 1999 performance.
Lutosławski – Chain I. The composer himself conducts the London Sinfonietta, for whom the work was written, at the Albert Hall (is this première? I’ll check). A Lutosławski curio – a performance of the Pagannini Variations he wrote for his wartime piano duet with Andrzej Panufnik; not the best quality recording, but an all-out performance.
Maierhof: Sugar 1. Courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In two parts: 1, 2.
Messiaen. No music in this clip, but it’s interesting nonetheless – a clip of Messiaen at the organ of La Trinité, Paris, preparing his registration before beginning an improvisation. Taken from the DVD Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time/Improvisations.
Messiaen – Eclairs sur l’Au delà. Simon Rattle conducts the Berlin Phil in Messiaen’s last major work. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 [removed by the copyright police], 8.
More Messiaen: from the same DVD, JanPB has uploaded two movements from Le quatour pour la fin du temps – ‘Liturgie de cristal‘, and ‘Louange à l’éternité de Jésus‘. He’s also uploaded a performance of Marie-Claire Alain playing ‘Les bergers‘, from one of my all-time favourite works, La nativité. Oh, and here’s Roger Muraro performing ‘Par lui tout a été fait‘, number six of the Vingt Régards.
Still more Messiaen – very tasty footage of Boulez, Aimard and the Ensemble Intercontemporain playing Oiseaux éxotiques. Thanks to Deceptively Simple for spotting this gem. Part 1, part 2. (User jre58591 has posted a bunch more piano-based Messiaen for the interested.)
Murail – Tellur. Performed by Rafael Andia.
Nono – … sofferte onde serene … Performed by Markus Hinterhäuser. Part 2 here.
Nono – Hölderlin, from Prometeo No visuals as such, just sound (as it should be in this case).
Oliveros: jamming with the Timeless Pulse Trio: part 1, part 2, part 3.
Penderecki – Capriccio per oboe e orchestra. Performance of this classic showpiece – looks like it was recorded for TV, rather than a concert performance.
Penderecki – Threnody No visuals, just the recording.
More Penderecki: Second Violin Concerto, played by Anne-Sophie Mutter, part 1, 2, 3, 4
Radulescu – Das Andere, courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In three parts: 1, 2, 3, played by Vincent Royer.
Reich – Eight Lines. Unfortunately not the whole piece, but a good chunk; recording of the Dutch premiere, from 2005, by the London Steve Reich Ensemble.
Reynolds – The Behaviour of Mirrors. Performed by guitarist P. Bowman.
Rzewski – Winsboro Cotton Mill Blues. Performed by Roger Wright as part of the Cliburn piano competition.
More Rzewski - Bobby Mitchell performs The People United Will Never Be Defeated. In 8 parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Satie/Cale – John Cale – on that show ‘I’ve Got a Secret’ again – playing and talking about Erik Satie’s Vexations.
Satoh – Incarnation II. Performed by the composer Michail Goleminov.
Schnittke – Piano Sonatas. No.1: 1st movt, 2nd movt, 3rd movt, 4th movt; No.2: 1st movt, 2nd movt, 3rd movt; No.3: 1st movt, 2nd movt, 3rd movt, 4th movt.
Stockhausen – Setz die Segel zur Sonne. The care and concentration before a note is played in the Messiaen clip reminds me in passing of Stockhausen’s instructions for his Aus den Seiben Tagen, of which this is the most well-known piece.
Stockhausen – Klavierstücke IX, played by Michail Goleminov.
Stockhausen: Michaels Reise um die Welt. Performed by musikFabrik and Marco Blaauw. In five parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Stockhausen – Zyklus, played by Nick Tolle: part 1, part 2.
Tenney – Wake for Charles Ives. Performed by the William Winant Percussion Group.
Varèse, Le Corbusier, Xenakis – Poème electronique. It’s not immediately clear, but these may be the original visuals for the famous Philips Pavilion performance of the work at Expo 58.
Varèse – Offrandes. More Varèse, with a performance by Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Varèse – Ionisation. Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain again.
Xenakis – Eonta, courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts. In three parts: 1, 2, 3.
Xenakis – Metastaesis, with accompanying structural breakdown. Awesome.
Xenakis – Mycenae Alpha. Another scrolling score video, this time with Xenakis’s original drawings from which the piece is generated.
Five part documentary (in Japanese) on Xenakis: part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Includes some great concert footage, and Xenakis gives his interviews in French, which might be of use.
Xenakis – Rebonds, courtesy of Monday Evening Concerts and played by the incomparable Stephen Schick. In two parts: 1, 2.
Xenakis – Synaphaï, performed in Kyoto, piano solo played by Hiroaki Ooi. Part 2 here.
Xenakis – Tetras, performed by the Arditti Quartet. Part 1, part 2.
Zimmerman, Bernd Alois – Requiem für einen jungen Dichter No visuals, just the recording.
Zimmermann, Bernd Alois – Stille und Umkehr Again, few visuals to this one, just the recording.
Okay, not the actual premiere, but the BBC dramatisation that was shown earlier this year. Alex Ross has spotted four videos on YouTube (1, 2, 3, 4) covering the complete first performance. As you’d expect from the BBC it’s pretty authentic stuff – Nijinsky playing with the house lights, cues and beats being shouted from the wings to dancers who could no longer hear the music over the catcalls, the costumes, etc. I don’t know how much of the dialogue is authentic, informed guesswork (‘go back to Russia’, ‘long live Lenin’), or pure fantasy. Some of it is, unfortunately, clunky BBC sitcom writing. But the thing as a whole is an incredibly powerful experience. As an artistic triumph over adversity it’s second to none, and with the benefit of hindsight and plenty of judicious editing the audience interventions and disruptions only add to the power of the music and the ballet (in which the travails of the dancers and the characters they perform are shown as closely intertwined). Another interesting observation is that in this dramatisation (and again I don’t how authentic this can claim to be) it is the women who enjoy it more – almost all of them shown like it, whereas male opinion is fiercely divided.
Anyway, it’s well worth half an hour of your time to watch this.
