Preface
"3. Fetishizing the machine: in western classical music playing and singing are not projecting imagery of peoplesound (or for that matter godsound or creaturesound or spiritsound) but powersound - impersonified mechanismsound - the cosmos imaged not as person but as machine, not anthropomorphic but mechanomorphic - the person empowered by appropriating the puissance of the superpersonal Mover, Fabricator, Generator . . ."
- Benjamin Boretz "Thoughts on a Transcontinental Train, Thanksgiving 1989" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Recorded
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| photo by Karen Eisenbrey |
Galiarda, Fvb 6 - Ferdinando Richardson - Claudio Columbo
the ornaments are measured, not quickly to impress with skill, but to clarify their place within the metrical layers, integrated
Ballet des sorciers, - des Princesses, - Incerti - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Pickett
for old music, prior to the ossification of ensembles, plausible is OK. rule 1: no instrument known to have not been in existence then; rule 2: no inflation beyond the scale of social events reasonably to be expected from the household in question.
Suite in D minor, BWV 234 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
skill at the keys has become a real thing
and learnedness
this keyboard music isn't an imitation of any other ensemble
it is native
specific to the instrument's intimacy
Onzieme Ordre (do) - François Couperin - Rafael Puyana
These pieces sing, pushing at the small corners of rhythm with its ornaments, like socks crammed into the backs of drawers, playing long games with balance
Die Wohltemperierte Klavier, Band I, Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp minor - Johann Sebastian Bach - Sviatoslav Richter
each falling
falls through
different wafts
each rising
rises on
different rungs
moments of sweet clarity
recorder duets are displays of practical acoustics
creating the impression
(correct)
that sound is a configuration
of some medium
in the room
although what we actually hear
is a mental image
made from
two sensors
and wetware
Sonata in A minor, Wq. 49/1 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Richard Egarr
no element in any sequence is without specificity
by the time you've caught on
he's lost you
Magnificat - Francesco Durante - University Temple Chancel Choir - Chris Vincent, Howard Wolvington
the choir I am in, small, full of mostly old folks
(now in lockdown)
every week we would pull off a miracle
but we could also pull of something ridiculously ambitious
such as this.
Yes we have some great soloists to help
but there we are doing our miracle
Thine Is The Glory - George Frideric Handel (arranged by Robert Hobby) - David Di Fiore
flattery gets you nowhere
unless you're flattering the English
Allegretto and Presto in G Major - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim
acceptable but unremarkable
a study
Symphony in D Major, K38(38) "Apollo et Hyacinth" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Jaap Schroder, Christopher Hogwood
energetic vibrant too short to show much, all for the best at that age
October 14, 2020
Sonata in G minor, op. 7#3 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley
no completion
without interruption
shimmed up
balanced but skew
now where did I leave that?
how did it get over there?
the intricate ornamentation of an earlier age has been pushed aside for shiny passagework
without the fancy clothes there is room to move ones limbs
Sonata in G minor, op. 49#1 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff
Mozartean in lyricality, but quite modest and correct.
One senses someone looking over his shoulder
Symphony in B minor "Unfinished" - Franz Schubert - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Karl Böhm
the splayed spirit
holding together
more or less
Interior Man has become fodder
for public psychodramatic display
to be judged on the cruel turmoil of soul index
Etude in C Major, op. 10#1 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot (recorded in 1933)
Raw display of personal prowess as aesthetic image is part of the cult of personality
Napoleon syndrome
striving to understand what repeating this thing means
is it about where it ends?
is it about its length?
is it about its registral vector?
what?
String Quartet in F minor, op. 80 - Felix Mendelssohn - Quatuor Ysaÿe
they are keeping a secret
(who us?)
music for the players mostly, we are peripheral enjoyers.
demonstrably respectable musicianship
nice but hardly revolutionary
Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 2 - Johannes Brahms - Julius Katchen
brash and mal-shaped
the parts fight each other
in unseemly seams
the overflow last movement wanders off in denial of its own world beating ambition
October 15, 2020
Eine Faust Symphonie - Franz Liszt - Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, Kenneth Riegel
1
in the 19th Century
symphony and opera swallowed each other
each became the whole of each
but also like a triptych
into each
painting
movement
character
of which
we enter as it were a virtual reality
that must be Leonard jumping around on the podium making that pounding sound
a woman's place is within
the setting is interior
internal looking past the world
no sudden leaps of imagination
no thought that isn't holy
3
trickster Mephistopheles clown
let the audience leave cheering the devil
sure!
how did she get in here
ah
so we could have the moral of the story
the eternal womanliness
(sung by men)
nice tenor soloist though
Selections from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Richard Wagner - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz
step through here please
you will forget
where you have ever been
what you have ever seen
Wagner has in common with cats
an inability to dance
there is no party downstairs
Boris Godunov, Act I, Scene I (1872 version) - Modeste Mussorgsky -Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow, Martti Talvela, Leonard Mroz, Nicolai Gedda, Bozena Kinasz, Andrzej Hiolski, Aage Haugland, Halina Lukomska, Polish Radio Chorus of Krakow, Boys Chorus from the Krakow Philharmonic Chorus
entombed dead of night
barely flickering
another combination of solo male voices and chorus
(as in the prologue)
the past instructs the future
the camera does not move
October 16, 2020
important to remember that the composer was only 19 at the time this was written.
the how it is done school of composition
the Clementi-Songs-Without-Words-Album-For-The-Young academy.
(but 19).
the thinking is clear and unfussy
quite likable
but one senses a pedant over her shoulder
1812 Overture - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Philadelphia Orchestra - Riccardo Muti
This has been reworked as a hi-fidelity show recording (the money shows).
Why did I find myself rooting for the French?
Capriccio espagnol - Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov - The Philadelphia Orchestra - Eugene Ormandy
He does not seem to be particularly interested in what the music is doing
beyond being pleasing
but Nicolai sure can make what he's doing sound great
No wonder he was so alarmed by Mussorgsky.
See all the pretty costumes! It's like we were really there.
Sonata in F minor - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogdon
1
scraps of a sonata
overheard at a party
scraps of a revolution
overheard in a crowded tavern
sweeping with wide-screen emotion.
2
Gretchen?
3
Mephistopholes? is that you too?
Is this literally based on Eine Faust Symphonie?
Well, it seems likely
we are back at what could be Gretchen at the end
the bitter end
(that's a coffin for sure, and a hymn.)
I can't think the mapping with Liszt is an accident.
Poeme - Ernest Chaussson - Luxemburg Radio Orchestra, Louis De Froment, Patrice Fontanarosa
strangely recorded. Old? not so much: 1973 if google is to be believed. It might a bad transfer at some point.
the music goes like somebody's dream ballet moment
ravishment is the clear intent
Postscripts
begins with comparison at the most
background structural 28
limited is measurement for some p such
oblique voice
circle voice
more than one
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