Preface
"The ultimate act of musical creation is the auditory-mental activity by which alone a musical identity is brought into being, in the only way in which, epistemically speaking, it has being: as a consciously experienced determinate feel; that is, as an awareness-state of the whole perceptual consciousness of some one experiencing person, an awareness-state which is cognized by that person as a distinct experienced-sound entity within a certain range of such entities, and which is retrievable in principle and therefore in principle - though not necessarily in practice - intersubjectively shareable."
- Benjamin Boretz "The Logic of What?" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
July 15, 2020
Summer Wind - Songs of E. J. Moeran
Peter Nelson-King
I got to thinking about chords
chords of stacked thirds
extended past 7ths or 9ths
but without the structural underpinnings of the blues such as give jazz a fresh path forward
exposing the limits of Rameau-based thinking
the root progressions are all lost in fog
Wayward in Limbo
"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.
July 11, 2020
Erin Jorgensen - Walking Down The Stairs
cushioning wood yarn resonance
overlay of mesmerization
as text experiment: sharing experience in processing
a suggestion game:
suggested image enters
(as language enters)
(as titles enter)
(as intentions enter)
(as specificity enters)
[Analysis of the set of suggestions, while it happens, is defensive, evidence of mistrust (mine)]
we are led
to descend to
a fantasial pleasure pool
(internal euphorial access)
in line at the bank
lines and lines
July 12, 2020
Tamara Zenobia - Creating Our Stories
music with texts that concern themselves with healing
Why do I have such trouble with it?
(just what kind of jerk am I?)
A. when provided with a text as part of a music I seek to engage with it as an object.
B. I don't want the message, it gets in my way
C. Intrusive Dogmatic Assertion: Sentiment Kills Art, i.e. author's messages disrupt.
[If you have a message, out with it. If you are making something, make it. - I have trouble getting those two activities to play well together in my experiencing listening.]
D. If I want music to be healing of me then the text will distract, I immediately turn critical on the text - I resist suggestions from outside, I prefer to be in control of my own response.
But: If it isn't my healing that's at issue?
However: I need to take it personally - that's what I need music for.
So: would it help if I didn't know what the text was about?
OK: her singing voice is quite nice and she enjoys making it and hearing it.
Why do I persist in going forensic? (Observation has been my most productive listening mode.) Clearly I am not the target audience and still have some work to do.
July 16, 2020
Jen Gilleran - Flat Felled Seam
distant and near
NEAR! > [ ] ? ::
quartile patterns now holding
]door shuts[
parts hold quartilely
(we count to four)
to measure out a slow shift
)we lost someone back there(
[but continue]
shuttle shuttle
> hear! {they come} somewhere
shuttle shutter
tire sirens
[boom, drum]
fire sirens
DRUUM (DRWM)
song bit
just the tune and its water wiggles
send 'em out wiggling
Recorded
July 11, 2020
Symphony in D Major (#8) - Felix Mendelssohn - English Bach Festival Orchestra, William Boughton
Haydnesque slow introduction into a D Major with dark corners in it. The single tones shining lights in that slow introduction appear here and there embedded in the matter of that which ensues thereafter. Its Sturm und Drang is all carefully schematicized for your safety. It treats the old forms in the spirit in which the older forms were intended to be treated: to bind chaos, to forestall annihilation, to keep in hermetic isolation. Chaos in quarantine.
I keep hoping the fugue subject will suddenly go all killywonkus, but it won't.
Trio in B-flat Major, D.898, Op. 99 - Franz Schubert - Josef Suk, Jan Panenka, Josef Chuchro
a complete orchestra with quirks, perks, and limits
Some of the balance of power issues* could be eliminated with an earlier form of piano possessed of a lighter sound.
Janus-faced melodies
straight and prim [flipface] graceful and tender
pull down the scrim of dire portent
sequential polytonality
but more radical than in the Mendelssohn above
The literary Romantic notion of human psychology is so familiar to us that we forget sometimes it isn't ours.
the imitation games he plays are unlike anybody else's like games
these are no imitation imitation games
they have their own purpose to pursue
*a piano with lid down is not an adequate substitute for an early 19th Century parlor-sized piano, or so I suspect.
6 Intermezzi, op. 4 - Robert Schumann - Peter Frankl
addle brain
fancy free
swift winged swallow
fancy free
(just as flashy in the fingers as Chopin or Liszt
but his flashes are
more structured than Liszt's orchestral emulations
more keyboardy than Chopin's operatic Belliniisms)
He's the whole puppet show
July 12, 2020
Grande Messe des Morts - Hector Berlioz - Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Radio France Choir, Leonard Bernstein, Stuart Burrows
downward motion
forward
backward
stasis
motion mixed (still stepwise)
the words are set to a music
dwarfing space
into the day of wrath we progress inexorate
text repeated small
text repeated big
music extends the reach of text's meaning
it can hold the word together
(though bruited about)
through multiple readings
set within a huge tonal framework
this text exists
only here
Royal Fanfare
big old cadence
pomp and pageant
all that is below
passing in procession
another singular text brought to you here
on this page
(though the chant on a single pitch in word sized rhythm has a resonance with just such a figure in the first movement
reconciliation
vs
terror
it has it all
here in one spot
here in one spot
we come together beloved children
to celebrate
a good cry
motion is no longer straight nor singular
Stuart Burrows floats it up there so easy and light!
The crown jewel of this recording
outshines all of it
breathtaking
homophonic chord change: vowel shift
the whole shebang as a study in melodic motion
upward, downward, forward
It ends when we get back to where we started, cyclical.
All the cadences in a specious list
(cadence order matters not)
each would work
July 13, 2020
Stabat Mater - Gioachino Rossini - Wiener Philharmoniker, Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, Myung-whun Chung, Luba Orgonasova, Cecilia Bartoli, Raul Gimenz, Roberto Scandiuzzi
bears
at the opening
a resemblance to the above
must have been a real market for the wide-screen religious spectacle
a soloist's showcase
because, well, Italy
Berlioz composed a cathedral
Rossini composed an opera
would his audience have understood anything else?
also a rhythmic/metric wonder
These texts have a point of view
they are characters in that opera
If he has a grand scheme for this he has beguiled me from caring what it is.
Rossini says:
The way for opera to survive is to hide it in other things
wrap it up
return to start to finish to return
made you jump!
_____ says:
The way to survive is to hide in other things.
July 14, 2020
Tannhäuser, Act II - Richard Wagner - Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Josef Greindl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Eberhard, Waechter, Gerhard Stolze, Franz Crass, Georg Paskuda, Gerd Nienstedt, Anja Silja, Grace Bumbry, Else-Margrete Gardelli, Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele, Wilhelm Pitz
the stakes :: the challenge :: the trial
you're being hazed my friend
at this point our boy is probably (should probably be) thinking it's time to go back to Venusburg. They seem friendly there. This place is bonkers!
to paint as unlifelikely pious a picture as can be daubed, unearthy, comforting
uh oh
he said a bad word
:: the failure ::
the males hound him out of town
Benediction de Dieu dans a solitude - Franz Liszt - Stephen Hough
Orders of magnitude more sophisticated as composition than Tannhäuser. Every note carries itself as essential, even the filigree is designed - so civilized! His keyboard writing is so natural it's difficult to work past the enraptured awe of it to see what its limits are. A living, breathing Balzac character.
Tenting on the Old Campground and Marching Through Georgia - Walter Kittridge and Henry Work - Gregg Smith Singers, Gregg Smith [from The Great Sentimental Age]
the beginnings of the lies we told each other
Night on Bald Mountain - Modest Mussorgsky (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel) - Philadelphia Orchestra, Ricardo Muti
an illustrated volume
(this performance is by the book, phoned in, a mimeograph
I want to hear the venom in every note
otherwise the dawn is a ho hum
Symphony in C minor "Little Russian" (#2) - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Wiener Philharmoniker, Lorin Maazel
Tchaikovsky, playing the National Composer, had to compete with that particular slice of civilization hovering at the edge of France & Italy, and with the upstarts of Germany arising. He had to do it all better, and all he had to work with was spectacle: A Single Combat Hero for the Orthodox Empire.
So: He invented cinema. Those aren't movements, they are reels.
**
hyperdigital recording
all the keyclicks
surreal, but works for this piece
July 15, 2020
Symphony in D Major, op. 73 (#2) - Johannes Brahms - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
Rather than become the National Composer by beating the operatic nations at their game, he stays on his own contrapuntal turf, pretty much undisputed.
he seems
now and again
to relax his grip
but we drop in a little further
there is no lyric effusion that can't be packed into a stretto-fied package
Once he learned a thing about music he couldn't not use it always. Every line must have its completion. All the D Major that can possibly be is crammed in.
July 16, 2020
Messe in E minor - Anton Bruckner - Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum, Josef Schmidhuber
you'll get no help here
you must simply follow where it goes
no other path is possible
no hand rails either
tender severity
this music is not an easy theology
Requiem, op. 48 - Gabriel Fauré - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, L'Union Chorale de la Tour de Peilz, Ernest Ansermet, Suzanne Danco, Gerard Souzay, Robert Mermoud, Eric Schmidt
[this recording sounds like a radio broadcast from another time line]
opening
the voices are together but their voices voice at different times
not Romantic not Nationalist
what then? what is it trying to do?
something personal, not public
[its popular masterpiece status is accidental: it isn't so difficult to sing, and doesn't require such extravagent forces that a mid-sized church choir couldn't do it creditably, so they do.]
unostentatious
intimate
for real
July 17, 2020
Italienische Serenade - Hugo Wolf - Melos Quartet
nervous
unsettled
uncomfortable in its key
looks to the side
every bar or so
Symphony No. 1, op. 13 - Sergei Rachmaninoff - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Walter Weller
another National Composer wannabe
ended up as the National Composer of Czarists in Exile (keeping the sugar plum dream alive)
How old was he?
(when he was able, being an aristocrat, to exploit the resources of such a huge orchestra, in public)?
24?
a novel with too many pretty phrases
forgets to get along with it
wanders into a room and falls asleep in a corner
(a music of first-world problems)
he even starts the finale
with a glorious fanfare
to introduce: himself
an abject symphony begging for applause
The Weepy Tragedy of the Thwarted Megalomaniac
the anti-Scarlatti
A Breeze from Alabama - Scott Joplin - William Albright
this is instructive
it makes a case for Joplin's careful keyboard writing
not Scarlatti, but certainly not the anti-Scarlatti - far from it!
Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogdon
Not the National Composer of anything ever. Scriabin was actually interested in the music, in what makes it tick. And he had the most original ear for intricate keyboard figuration of anyone since Schumann.
This music has music stuck in its hair.
Red Onion Rag - Ray Spangler [from That Devilin' Tune]
an underlying clarity
tin man mechanized puppet-machine show
That Funny Jas Band - Collins & Harlan (Byron G. Harlan, Arthur Collins) [from That Devilin' Tune]
I'm not sure I want to imagine the visuals of the actual stage act. The text is uncomfortable enough.
In Session at the Tintinabulary
July 13, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 1005 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Once again we gathered in semi-distant sociality. Karen and I were on the porch, Steve and Aaron were in the yard under the maple tree, and Neal narrowcast his sounds from Outpost Lake City to a tiny speaker held in front of the recording device, each device on its own tripod.
to celebrate
a good cry
motion is no longer straight nor singular
Stuart Burrows floats it up there so easy and light!
The crown jewel of this recording
outshines all of it
breathtaking
homophonic chord change: vowel shift
the whole shebang as a study in melodic motion
upward, downward, forward
It ends when we get back to where we started, cyclical.
All the cadences in a specious list
(cadence order matters not)
each would work
July 13, 2020
Stabat Mater - Gioachino Rossini - Wiener Philharmoniker, Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor, Myung-whun Chung, Luba Orgonasova, Cecilia Bartoli, Raul Gimenz, Roberto Scandiuzzi
at the opening
a resemblance to the above
must have been a real market for the wide-screen religious spectacle
a soloist's showcase
because, well, Italy
Berlioz composed a cathedral
Rossini composed an opera
would his audience have understood anything else?
also a rhythmic/metric wonder
These texts have a point of view
they are characters in that opera
If he has a grand scheme for this he has beguiled me from caring what it is.
Rossini says:
The way for opera to survive is to hide it in other things
wrap it up
return to start to finish to return
made you jump!
_____ says:
The way to survive is to hide in other things.
July 14, 2020
Tannhäuser, Act II - Richard Wagner - Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Josef Greindl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Eberhard, Waechter, Gerhard Stolze, Franz Crass, Georg Paskuda, Gerd Nienstedt, Anja Silja, Grace Bumbry, Else-Margrete Gardelli, Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele, Wilhelm Pitz
the stakes :: the challenge :: the trial
you're being hazed my friend
at this point our boy is probably (should probably be) thinking it's time to go back to Venusburg. They seem friendly there. This place is bonkers!
to paint as unlifelikely pious a picture as can be daubed, unearthy, comforting
uh oh
he said a bad word
:: the failure ::
the males hound him out of town
Benediction de Dieu dans a solitude - Franz Liszt - Stephen Hough
Tenting on the Old Campground and Marching Through Georgia - Walter Kittridge and Henry Work - Gregg Smith Singers, Gregg Smith [from The Great Sentimental Age]
the beginnings of the lies we told each other
Night on Bald Mountain - Modest Mussorgsky (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel) - Philadelphia Orchestra, Ricardo Muti
an illustrated volume
(this performance is by the book, phoned in, a mimeograph
I want to hear the venom in every note
otherwise the dawn is a ho hum
Symphony in C minor "Little Russian" (#2) - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Wiener Philharmoniker, Lorin Maazel
Tchaikovsky, playing the National Composer, had to compete with that particular slice of civilization hovering at the edge of France & Italy, and with the upstarts of Germany arising. He had to do it all better, and all he had to work with was spectacle: A Single Combat Hero for the Orthodox Empire.
So: He invented cinema. Those aren't movements, they are reels.
**
hyperdigital recording
all the keyclicks
surreal, but works for this piece
July 15, 2020
Symphony in D Major, op. 73 (#2) - Johannes Brahms - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
Rather than become the National Composer by beating the operatic nations at their game, he stays on his own contrapuntal turf, pretty much undisputed.
he seems
now and again
to relax his grip
but we drop in a little further
there is no lyric effusion that can't be packed into a stretto-fied package
Once he learned a thing about music he couldn't not use it always. Every line must have its completion. All the D Major that can possibly be is crammed in.
July 16, 2020
Messe in E minor - Anton Bruckner - Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum, Josef Schmidhuber
you'll get no help here
you must simply follow where it goes
no other path is possible
no hand rails either
tender severity
this music is not an easy theology
Requiem, op. 48 - Gabriel Fauré - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, L'Union Chorale de la Tour de Peilz, Ernest Ansermet, Suzanne Danco, Gerard Souzay, Robert Mermoud, Eric Schmidt
opening
the voices are together but their voices voice at different times
not Romantic not Nationalist
what then? what is it trying to do?
something personal, not public
[its popular masterpiece status is accidental: it isn't so difficult to sing, and doesn't require such extravagent forces that a mid-sized church choir couldn't do it creditably, so they do.]
unostentatious
intimate
for real
July 17, 2020
Italienische Serenade - Hugo Wolf - Melos Quartet
nervous
unsettled
uncomfortable in its key
looks to the side
every bar or so
Symphony No. 1, op. 13 - Sergei Rachmaninoff - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Walter Weller
another National Composer wannabe
ended up as the National Composer of Czarists in Exile (keeping the sugar plum dream alive)
How old was he?
(when he was able, being an aristocrat, to exploit the resources of such a huge orchestra, in public)?
24?
a novel with too many pretty phrases
forgets to get along with it
wanders into a room and falls asleep in a corner
(a music of first-world problems)
he even starts the finale
with a glorious fanfare
to introduce: himself
an abject symphony begging for applause
The Weepy Tragedy of the Thwarted Megalomaniac
the anti-Scarlatti
A Breeze from Alabama - Scott Joplin - William Albright
this is instructive
it makes a case for Joplin's careful keyboard writing
not Scarlatti, but certainly not the anti-Scarlatti - far from it!
Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogdon
Not the National Composer of anything ever. Scriabin was actually interested in the music, in what makes it tick. And he had the most original ear for intricate keyboard figuration of anyone since Schumann.
This music has music stuck in its hair.
Red Onion Rag - Ray Spangler [from That Devilin' Tune]
an underlying clarity
tin man mechanized puppet-machine show
That Funny Jas Band - Collins & Harlan (Byron G. Harlan, Arthur Collins) [from That Devilin' Tune]
I'm not sure I want to imagine the visuals of the actual stage act. The text is uncomfortable enough.
In Session at the Tintinabulary
July 13, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 1005 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Once again we gathered in semi-distant sociality. Karen and I were on the porch, Steve and Aaron were in the yard under the maple tree, and Neal narrowcast his sounds from Outpost Lake City to a tiny speaker held in front of the recording device, each device on its own tripod.
Postscripts
herz schon brennt den kann ich lore lay ich
bishof treibt nicht so bösen spott and für
mich den lay o ritter lasst mich gehen
***
blows on the bass drum
muffled
oblique voice
Not so sure I agree with you that the Fauré can or should be done by a church choir..It is a masterpiece usually slaughtered by church choirs under the erroneous notion that it is easy ....it requires the ultimate in understanding French rep and style....most church choirs should not touch it...i have heard the piece destroyed too many timee by yhose who think it is "easy".....i enjoy your blog..David
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