Live performance (Stefan Asbury and Bavarian RSO) from the Munich Biennale 2008. Get it at inconstant sol.
Archive for October, 2008
Les espaces acoustiques: the reviews
Here’s what others have been saying about it.
Print media:
Each section bled into the next, taking us into an ever-surprising wonderland. Fierce industrial blasts from the brass. A chorus of woodwind sea birds. Coarse stabbing notes from the double-bass. Fuzzy clusters drifting across space, like electronic music rescored for instruments. The rustle of pages and instruments being packed up (delicious music theatre, that). A seismic, thrilling, slow-paced crescendo. And the biggest thrill of the cycle? Everything fused and hung together; nothing seemed thrust in for effect, except perhaps for the four chugging horns brought in at the end to disrupt, then curtail, Grisey’s endlessly imaginative cosmic dance.
A full house; ecstatic applause; a major milestone in music triumphantly unveiled. I can’t imagine a more spectacular concert for the London Sinfonietta’s 40th birthday year.
Ideas recur and transform themselves, while the whole harmonic space of the music gradually expands too, as quarter-tone inflected chords build and fall away, fracture into trills or generate climaxes of Wagnerian grandeur.
There are moments of pure theatre, too, when the players self-consciously retune an instrument or flamboyantly throw their music on the floor. It is as if Grisey wanted to ground his theorising in the real world, though the force of his extraordinary musical processes is real enough anyway.
The music systematically mines the expressive possibilities of overtones, frequently cleaving to a single pitch for long stretches, yet, in the later parts, building huge, complex, incandescent climaxes. This British premiere of the complete cycle became ever more enthralling.
Online:
Liam Cagney, Musical Criticism
This concert was a brilliant one and all involved deserve congratulation for carrying it off so well. The person I attended it with remarked that he would have sat immediately through a repeat performance and it was hard to disagree with that verdict; one was definitely left wanting more. Hopefully the concert’s outstanding success will encourage more performances of Grisey’s striking work here.
In America, composers as diverse as La Monte Young and James Tenney had spent the 1960s exploring tonality, the harmonic spectrum, new sounds, forms and structures. Europeans largely thought of them as amateurs, pranksters. Grisey, on the other hand, was the professional: he knew that a composer needed a computer laboratory, a symphony orchestra, and a tendency to disrupt his new sound world with conventional dramatic gestures to be taken seriously.
Gérard Grisey’s Les espaces acoustiques is a ground-breaking work which defies all assumptions about what music “ought” to be. Not for nothing did the composer describe it as “a great laboratory”, exploring the way we listen. Written from 1974 to 1985, it’s actually six pieces which can be enjoyed separately. This was the first UK performance of the whole cycle.
It starts with a single violist, expanding to ensembles for 7, 18, 33 and 84 musicians. Grisey uses chords that endlessly morph and oscillate, displaying the full spectrum of sound. Hence the term “spectralism” which Grisey later abandoned. This is very organic music, in harmony with the biorhythms of the human body, like breathing, steadily exhaling and inhaling.
This isn’t music to “audit” passively as it’s complex, but it’s also strangely therapeutic. Afterwards, you feel refreshed, as if you’ve had a workout. If you’ve been listening well, you probably have, since the more you put into this, the more you get back.
Michaels Reise in Dresden
Hat tip to jodru (as linker and participant) for these gorgeous stills from musikFabrik’s recent staging of Michaels Reise um die Erde (Act II of Donnerstag aus Licht) in Dresden.
Also for posting this video clip from rehearsals:
Wow.
Grisey spoon
Grisey – Les Espaces acoustiques reviewed.
I’ve mixed feelings about how this came out. Could have done with another editorial sweep from me at the least. Oh well.
Xenakis, Benjamin, Ligeti and Messiaen reviewed.
This one’s less ambitious and probably better for it.
My feelings about the reviews reflect my feelings about the concerts.
Palin … Ablinger
Spot the difference:
1.
‘Palin song’ on Youtube
2.
A Letter from Schoenberg by Peter Ablinger (video link).
(thanks to colint)
Camberwell Composers in Cambridge
Date: Wednesday 29 October
Time: 8pm
Place: Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
More info: http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/music/new.html
The Camberwell Composer’s Collective is Mark Bowden, Emily Hall, Chris Mayo, Anna Meredith and Charlie Piper. Fresh from a first commission for the Last Night of the Proms, Anna Meredith will bring us a beat-based remix of Scotland the Brave. Emily Hall’s powerful Put flesh on juxtaposes cello with electronic sound using an intense sermon delivered by the Reverend Audrey F. Branson.
Four of the most exciting musicians on the scene will be performing with the Camberwell Composers – Oliver Coates cello, Stuart King clarinet, Naxto Mollins percussion and Neil Georgeson piano. There will also be feature animations and live projections from animator Tony Comley and illustrator Eleanor Meredith.
Individually well established in their field, the thread that binds them is their desire to bring music to new audiences in new ways. As individuals, the five members of the Camberwell Composers’ Collective have won the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize four times; been composers-in-residence at Handel House, and with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; and received commissions from top music institutions including the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta.
Their plans for the New Music Series include presenting concerts by Max de Wardener, The Elysian Quartet, Oliver Coates, The Ossian Ensemble and Ensemble Klang. Alongside they will be working with the Cambridge University New Music Ensemble, which launched last year mixing the best student performers with young professional musicians.
Musicology and copyright in sound recordings
The following email has been going around some academic mailing lists, courtesy of Nicholas Cook, director of the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, but I think the issues it raises are important enough to deserve a wider audience:
Most of you will probably know that the European Commission, prompted by the major record companies, plans to extend copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 95 years, in line with the US. The result in the US has been to make access to the vast majority of the recorded legacy impossible (for details see http://www.clir.org/pubs/execsum/sum133.html). Unlike the US legislation, the Commission’s proposals include a ‘use it or lose it’ provision, by which if after 50 years sound recordings are not reissued by the rights owner copyright reverts to the performer(s), and if they are not then reissued by the performer(s) copyright lapses–but in its current form the provision appears quite unworkable, and in any case it would not apply to recordings produced from now on.
There is a great deal of coordinated opposition from copyright lawyers and other experts, including some musicological groups, but there is no substitute for people making their views known to their MEPs. If you care about access to the heritage of recorded music, either now or in the future, then please read the following circular from the Open Rights Group.
—————————
Nicholas Cook, FBA
Professorial Research Fellow, Royal Holloway, University of London
Director, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded
Music nicholas.cook@rhul.ac.uk—–Original Message—–
The European Parliament has begun preparing its opinion on the European Commission’s flawed proposal to extend the term of copyright protection for sound recordings. MEPs have been appointed to act as rapporteurs, who will guide the committees that will recommend how Parliament should vote. Your MEPs need to know that their voters are concerned and paying attention – get in touch with them to let them know your concerns. To help you do this we’ve prepared a guide to lobbying your MEPs (1) and a briefing pack (2).
(1) http://www.soundcopyright.eu/system/files/MEP+lobbying+tips.pdf
(2) http://www.soundcopyright.eu/system/files/Briefing.pdfLobbyists for term extension are making the case to MEPs inside the European Parliament right now. But your voice is stronger than any lobbyist. We can’t overstate it: the most important thing you can do to stop term extension is to let your MEPs know your concerns so they an see and hear your side. Be aware also that MEPs can be deluged with information on many topics and appreciate being treated as individuals.If you want to travel to Brussels to meet your MEPs and need help – hit reply. If you have a story or an interest that we should know about – hit reply. Now is the time to speak, so use your voice wisely!
We’ll keep you updated of major developments, but you can track the proposal on the Parliament website (3) and the details of relevant committees and MEP members are also available (4). Currently Legal Affairs (JURI) are leading. Three other committees – Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO); Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE); and Culture and Education (CULT), will also help.
(3) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/FindByProcnum.do?lang=3D2&procnum=3DCOD/2008/0157
(4) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/committeesList.do?language=3DENIn the meantime the Directive is also being discussed by representatives of Member States in the Council of Ministers. And criticism of the Commission’s proposal is emerging all over Europe.
The world leading Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property Law (5) in Munich, has released a statement concluding that prolonging the term of protection “cannot be justified from any point of view.” (6)
(5) http://www.ip.mpg.de
(6) http://www.ip.mpg.de/en/data/pdf/stellungnahme-bmj-2008-09-10-def_eng.pdfProfessor Bernt Hugenholtz, Director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) in Amsterdam, and one of the Commission’s own advisers, has accused Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso of intentionally misleading policy-makers with the proposal (7).
(7) http://www.ivir.nl//news/Open_Letter_EC.pdf
Pekka Gronow, sound archivist, author of “An International History of the Recording Industry”, and adjunct professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Helsinki, has written and concluded that performers benefit very little from the proposed extension (“in most cases the resulting sums will not even cover bank charges”). (8)
(8) http://blogit.yle.fi/node/2234
And of course, ORG have written to the authorities in the UK, explaining exactly why the proposal makes no sense (9).
(9) http://www.openrightsgroup.org/uploads/080829_ukipo_ectermextension.pdf
The Sound Copyright Campaign=20
Run by the Open Rights Group and EFF———————————-
One other link (added by Nicholas Cook): statement from the Centre for
Intellectual Property Policy & Management, University of Bournemouth:
Thanks,
Irishmen (and women) in New York
Something for my American readers.
Jonathan Grimes of the CMC, Ireland, kindly sent me details of a couple of New York concerts involving Irish composers coming up this month.
On the 17th, catch an array of the best in contemporary Irish music – Ed Bennett, Ailis Ní Riain, Deirdre McKay, Jane O’Leary, John Kinsella, Ian Wilson and Jennifer Walshe – at Carnegie Hall: more details; tickets.
Here’s a taster video:
On the 26th, Jennifer Walshe will be performing her own music at the Issue Project Room. The concert also involves Object Collection: more details; tickets on the door.
Here’s a video of Walshe and Object Collection playing her piece A sensitive number for the laydeez:
