Playlist

Live

April 2, 2016

Stillness, Concentrate - Keith Eisenbrey, piano
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Welcome to my planet. I come in peace. - Keith Eisenbrey
Another - Keith Eisenbrey
J - Keith Eisenbrey
".....such words as it were vain to close....." - J. K. Randall


Leaving aside such words for a moment, it is gratifying in listening to the recordings of these recent pieces of mine to discover how much more clearly they come across as a thing to hear than they do as a thing to perform. That is, I spent a good deal of composing time inventing ways for each of them to do some particular thing - Welcome to slowly pass two independently spinning pitch matrices through each other, Another to . . . (I'm still not sure what exactly Another does), and J to pour attenuated contrapuntal lines through a mutually illuminated space - but the performing of them involves so much ferocious counting and focus on what's coming next that it is difficult to hear what's actually happening, and nearly impossible to get a feel for how it's going as an experience.

I'll have my performance of such words available privately on my soundcloud site (since I don't have permission to make it public), so if you would like to hear it please get in touch with me and I'll send you the link. Part of the mystique of the piece is a notion that only Jim could ever really play it right, so playing it at all might seem futile. But I hope that even the little pianistic wisdom I've managed to glean over the decades allows me to at least share a glimmer of what's there to be discovered.

Rescued Records

Recorded

April 5, 2016
Wig Wam Bam - Fantasy Four

This was from a box of 7" vinyl disks that Karen brought home from work, after they had been used as party decorations, after having been remaindered from a used record store. There was very little information on the disk itself, and the jacket for this one wasn't in the box, so even figuring out the name of the band took some sleuthing. All I had were the titles of the tracks and "F4". As best I can tell they broke up in 2002 or 2003, so I guessed this came out in about 2001. It isn't a great record by a stretch, but it's enthusiastic and good humored. One could easily imagine them sharing a bill with any number of local bands at some dive bar, in the same vein as Prom Queen or Can You Imagine, but with more of a Tyrannosaurus Grace exuberance.

Nobody Makes A Monkey Out Of Me - The Bugs [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]
Ferocious Alphabets - James Romig [from Milton Babbitt: A Composers' Memorial]

A single twisted twine, segments of which, due to the oddly contoured timespace in which it is cast, can only be observed through past or future portions of itself, refracting its singularity into many.

Tambourine Quintet - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

The tiniest shivers in space, making like speech.

S'io non miro non moro - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

Taffy pulling. I kept thinking of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday.

Singet dem Herrn ein Neues Lied BWV 225 - J. S. Bach - Concentus Musicus Wien, Bachchor Stockholm, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

A knockout concerto grosso for voices and continuo - the seventh Brandenburg.

Keyboard Sonata in C Major Wq. 65/16 - C. P. E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

Miklos plays this one on fortepiano, rather than clavichord. It lives in a gothic splendor of twisty narrow passages, dark yawning chasms, and dank dungeons.

Quartet in C minor Op. 17 #4 Hob. III:28 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

A well-ordered life in the age of reason. Stately rooms. long straight halls, courtyards bathed in sunlight. Proportion. Balance. Decorum.

April 7, 2016
Rondo in D Major K. 485 - Mozart - Lili Kraus

A counterfact to the dogma that Mozart's keyboard works can only come alive in all their subtlety when played on fortepiano, with its wide range of timbre from octave to octave. Lili makes do just fine with a clear differentiation of touch.

Symphony in B-flat Major Op. 60 (#4) - Beethoven - Vienna Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler

WF doesn't slow down in order to relax the tempo. His ritenutos underline the phrase.

Prelude in C-sharp minor Op. 25 - Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

The arpeggios here are not poet-dreamy, but nervous, urgent, coaxing out what might be remembered of another music, if only one could, if only it had ever been.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 4, 2016
Banned Telepath 47 Seattle 160404
Banned Telepath 47 Somerville 160404
Banned Rehearsal 908 160404 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy (in Seattle); and Aaron Keyt (in Somerville)

Playlist

Live

January 30, 2016
The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart
Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall

The stage set was cleverly designed, visually attractive, but not so fussy as to be distracting. The most interesting decision was to place Barbarina's cavatina about the pin at the edge of the stage, in front of the tall woodish panel wall that served as a curtain. Like setting Christ on a mountaintop, it forces attention: this is what it is all about - a lost trifle. Ironic, poignant, barbed. Something like the effect of the Holy Fool's plaint anchoring Boris Godunov.

Recorded

January 31, 2016
Merce grido piangendo - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

Utterance is never simple, always at least a skein. The co-sounding harmonies are a metaphor of inflection, of placement of voice within the mouth. That particular upward chromatic shift is an eyebrow raised, a dubious query.

Fürchte dich nicht, ich bin bei dir BWV 228 - J.S. Bach - Concentus Musicus Wien, Bachchor Stockholm, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

The actual earth has dropped down half a frame and we hear the angelic chorale floating above. Meanwhile we mortals go chugging about our business.

Keyboard sonata in F Wq. 54 #1 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

Single notes poke in here and there, laugh-in style. Toward the end of the 1st movement the harmony slows to an almost Beethovenian stillness.

Quartet in E op. 17 #1 Hob. III:25 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

A thought experiment: extract just the resolutions of each cadence and play only those, in sequence, in time. Then ask what the shape of each preceding and succeeding phrase does to change the sense of how that cadence sounds.

February 3, 2016
String Quartet in D K. 499 - Mozart - Juilliard String Quartet

It is lucid even when it gets gnarly.

February 4, 2016
String Quartet in F op. 59 #1 (#7) - Beethoven - Budapest Quartet

Entering the dark, overwhelming.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 1, 2016
Gradus 283 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

February 2, 2016
Ivan Arteaga and Keith Eisenbrey 160202 A
Ivan Arteaga and Keith Eisenbrey 160202 B
Ivan Arteaga and Keith Eisenbrey 160202 C

Ivan brought his alto sax and clarinet over to meet my piano. I for my part had a blast.

Playlist

Recorded

December 27, 2015
Banned Rehearsal 414 [February 1996, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer]

These clothes do not fit. Something is about to itch. Cabin fever. Stubborn drums. Finally boils over. Returns to the sullen wall.

Lauda Anima (midi version) - Keith Eisenbrey


When I finish a piece I usually like it pretty well, but I am always pleased when they get better upon re-listening. The sense I have is that this piece builds itself a delicately balanced ladder, one stick at a time, slowly and precariously ascending into darkness. It manages to live pretty comfortably in midi, but I will always regret that there is no recording of Marcus Oldham's superb performance of it at St. Marks a decade or so ago.

Outrageous - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]

Paul gets down to the funk.

December 28, 2015
Qixingshan - Benjamin Boretz - Momenta Quartet [on Open Space 32]

Uncanny intervals, inexorable stillness, ape rage exhausting itself on an empty landscape.

O voi, troppo felici - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

I kept getting the sense that all these chromatic shifts would suddenly come into focus and be completely regular, if only one could find exactly the right point from which to hear it.

Konzert in F Major BWV 1047 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

Such a small ensemble to make so many disparate sounds. It is as though there are more groupings than are mathematically possible. The secret is that he treats each register of each instrument as a new instrument, so that any two have among them a wealth of possibilities to work with. Thankfully, Herbert doesn't over-inflate his ensemble much for this one, so it comes across more like chamber than orchestra music, which is all to the good.

Petites Pieces "La Capricieuse" Wq. 117 #33 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

Breaking the stranglehold of baroque practice in the name of private amusement.

December 29, 2015
Quartet in D Major Op. 17 #6 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet
Concerto in C minor K. 491 - Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, Malcolm Bilson

Baroque combinations interrupted by articulating cadences. The soloist's opening salvo drives a wedge into a crack in the rhythm.

December 30, 2015
String Quartet in F major, Op. 59 #1 - Beethoven - Amadeus Quartet

The politics here are of intimates, not nations - familial social.

Playlist

Live

November 21, 2015

Finnegans Wake Chapter 1 - James Joyce - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Gallery 1412, Seattle

The small performance space allowed a deliciously huge unamplified dynamic range, with the piano's undampered reverberance coloring the whole in intimate detail. I've probably heard Neal perform this in public as many times as anyone he's not married to. With its stepped up pacing and minimal stage business this was easily the most enjoyable time out.

Recorded

November 22, 2015

Downtime [recorded live at SARC] - Benjamin Boretz - Ian Pace

threads of time enter fugally

discontinuities problemetize return

vast darkness

weightless strands float

delicate connections

No. 1 Phantom Killer - Ape City R&B [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

The voice in the mix is not an instrument to equal guitar or drums or bass. It is just part of the noise generated among the guitar amp fuzz and cymbal hiss.

Elizabeth Hoffman

red is rows - Elizabeth Hoffman [from Milton Babbitt, a composers' memorial] - Conrad Harris, Paula Kim Harris

Wicked open string hoedown music. Hop-up-and-down fantastic. Now that's some noise!

November 24, 2015

Ma tu, cagion (Seconda Parta) - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

obscure
through branches
a leaf

descending

mimed by a dancer's hand
in viscous
motion

Konzert in G BWV 1048 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

This production is conceived as an orchestra of groups, not of individuals. It keeps the listener at a remove from the performers. We can hear all the familiar bits going on, but none of it really happens.

Petites Pieces "La Complaisante" Wq. 117.28 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

A little caricature for private amusement. The human size of it appeals to the neo-classical mindset. The erstwhile subject is well fitted to the miniature sorts of social events available to music for clavichord.

Quartet in E-flat op. 17 #3 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

Concerto in C K. 503 (#25) - Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, Malcolm Bilson

Mozart's imagination, in default mode, is decorative: the aim is to make time lovely, to beguile and delight us. That deeper wonders can be found here is itself a deep wonder.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

November 22, 2015

Trio 151122 - Keith Eisenbrey

This week's trio was for tam tam, wood drum (like a small conga), and steel string acoustic guitar.

November 23, 2015

Banned Telepath 41 Seattle 151123 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy

We're waiting for Aaron's contribution from Somerville to complete Banned Rehearsal 899.

Playlist

Recorded

October 25, 2015
Se vi duol il mio duolo - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

Part of what seems so modern about Gesualdo is the centripetally charged architecture of the virtual space he creates. Hidden rooms and dark hallways are implied. Out can't be got. The only option is further in.

Konzert in G Major BWV 1048 - J.S. Bach - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

The halls here are brightly lit, and there are windows open to the breezes. The balanced phrases spill out in every seeming possible combination of distributive weighting.

Petites Pieces "Les Langeurs tendres" Wq. 117 #30 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

A mid-18th Century Chopin nocturne, though it would translate more graciously to lute or guitar than to piano.

Tatrai Quartet

Quartet in G Major Op. 17 #5 Hob. III:29 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

More fresh air and sunshine. Children are playing. Our music is a grace to the gracious living of others. This is the quartet from which Beethoven borrowed the recitative for the 9th.

Symphony in D Major K504(504) - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, Jaap Schroder

It isn't just that all of Mozart's best music is opera, either for real or in drag, but that the extent to which it is Mozartean is exactly the extent to which the music is the image of staged singers in mid-plot. The slow movement of this one pulls a second twist, in that the moment of its plot is utterly still, without beginning or end - the characters entwined for all time in freely poignant, floating bliss.

String Quartet in E minor op. 59 #2 - Beethoven - Budapest Quartet

The close regard of little tids of figuration (as transformable music substance) is the musical substance. The larger structures (phrases, sections, movements) are accidents, epiphenomena of the cross-play among micro-compositions.

October 27, 2015
Polonaise in F-sharp minor Op. 44 - Chopin - Artur Rubinstein

Played with admirable lucidity, the phrases rounded just enough for clarity without telegraphing what might be suddenly there next.

Symphony in C Major Op. 61 - Schumann - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

This is recorded/engineered in such a gluey acoustic environment that even what sounds like it was played articulately becomes distant and blurred, in soft-focus. Ah, that '30's Hollywood glow. Doesn't do Schumann any favors though.

Deception Pass State Park, Washington

In Session at the Tintinabulary

October 25, 2015
Wishes Last - Keith Eisenbrey

I wrote/improvised a song that's like a hymn, accompanied by spoons and nylon string guitar. I'll be putting this up on Bandcamp soon with a couple of other recent songs. First take, best take.

October 26, 2015
Banned Telepath 39 Seattle 151026
Banned Telepath 39 Somerville 151026
Banned Rehearsal 897 151026 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, in Seattle; and Aaron Keyt, in Somerville


Up to our usual shenanigans, Steve found a way to bow the washtub bass with a loose spring, to excellent effect.

Playlist

Live

October 2, 2015
Macefield Music Festival
Seattle

at Conor Byrne Pub

Scott

Scott Yoder has a lovely acoustic 12 string and a pleasing baritone voice that veers more toward a dylanesque than a country twang. In contrast to some he-minstrels he seems to have picked up strength in a shared vulnerability that is more commonly the province of she-minstrels, such as

Shannon

Shannon Stephens, (nice boots!) whose lightly wrought alto/mezzo vocals never soar to anthemic heights, but are always finding exquisite paths through the transparent open weave of sound provided by her ever so musicianly band, reminding us not to be blinded to what is there by what we think ought to be there, or such as

Mindie

Mindie Lind, with her face's active performance role, commenting on the songs in progress with a leer or a wink, edging cabaret-ward, her forward voice given plenty of space, her deftly composed set beginning with just her and her keyboard, after a few songs adding an understated electric bass, then a backing vocal, and ending with an a cappella duet. Music for grown-ups, in some (unfair) contrast to

at The Sunset Tavern
Full Toilet, who were just finishing their last song as we forced our way into the swampy press, and whom we had heard several years ago, or in contrast to

Gaytheist, who, judging from the knuckle tats on a nearby fan must be "prog-core", are a three piece Portland gang of mostly brawny 30 somethings whose very fast, very loud, and, admittedly, ably accomplished set triggered all sorts of pathologizing impulses in me. To be fair, their reasons for doing what they do are likely so alien to the reasons I might do a thing myself as to be outside my critical ambit. But if there is a crack through which I might begin to hear this music sympathetically I imagine it lies in its very narrowness, in the tightness of its expressive corset. There are only so many moves possible here, and it is yet to be discovered whether the possible resultant configurations of those moves are swiftly exhausted or might yield to the infinite.

Recorded

September 29, 2015
Banned Rehearsal 412 - January 1996 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Some of my favorite moments in BR sessions are those that shift between getting ready to prepare to do and spilling over the edge into doing.

These sounds are not made, they are released, making themselves if given half a chance.
energies of the body's muscles || energies of harnessed industry

At first it is an essay in reed harps.

The sound not so much recorded onto tape as stuffed into every cranny of magnetic media, the drums overcramming the violin scribble until it sounds like it is coming over a bad radio connection.

At nearly our noisiest, full of episodes variously narrated or chaperoned by electric guitar, each episode worked at intently even if not (though often) successfully.

As though collectively arranging massive objects on the floor.

Falling Still - Emily Doolittle - Seattle Chamber Players (Maria Mannisto, Paul Taub, Laura DeLuca, Matthew Kocmieroski, Mikhail Schmidt, Joe Kaufman)

A vertical sonority appears, suggested by a single tone, a vertical sonority flowers, allowing melodic prolongation, spilling out in a narration of a flowered vertically suggested sonority.

Santa Claus - Freak Outs [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

". . . is gonna eat your brain."

for Milton - Christian Carey - John McMuretry, Ashlee Mack

a careful arrangement of fractured stones, garlands of lichen and dried grasses, ramekins of brimming liquids. Love the hints of walking bass, and how the tones of flute and piano wrap around each other or fling themselves apart across their own discoveries.

October 1, 2015
Deh, coprite il bel seno - Gesualdo - Academy of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

So many sides and asides, so many second thoughts, so many testings of tensile strength. He pokes and prods his own creation.

Konzert in G BWV 1049 - Bach - Festival Strings Lucerne, Rudolf Baumgartner

One imagines the glee with which he seems to be inventing or re-imagining composition as a learned profession rather than as a merely tasteful servanthood.

Petites Pieces "La Journaliere" Wq. 117 #32 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

Late in the evening enchambered diversions for cultured friends. One could imagine 4 in the room, but not 6.

Keyboard Sonata in G Hob. XVI:8 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

In contrast, Haydn sounds like he might have been out-of-doors now and then, understands sunshine.

Symphony in D K. 504 (#38) "Prague" - Mozart - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter

Starts cloaked, hidden in shadow. His second thoughts are spun out over great distances within a world that holds them steady in social community. We know where we. Our ideas can spread out safely among the parts. For now.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 24, 2015 (inadvertantly missing from last post)
Demo Sessions 150924 - Your Mother Should Know (Karen Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Acoustic takes of 8 songs so that their new bass player can practice remotely: Distracted Driver, Don't Black Out, Quiet Girl, Rebecca Marina, See You At The Next Show, Shed a Tear, Yellow Line, You Ruined It. 4 tracks: an old Sony dynamic mic inside the kick drum, a horizontally aligned stereo condenser mic to pick up Karen's vocal in one track and her drums in the other, and a mono condenser to pick up Neal's vocal. I figured the guitar would show up on everything anyway.

September 27, 2015
Trio 150927 - Keith Eisenbrey
Three overdubbed tracks: autoharp, snare drum, transverse flute.

September 28, 2015
Banned Telepath 37 150928 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Aaron intimates that his portion will arrive anon.

Playlist

Live

August 22, 2015
Nabucco - Verdi - Seattle Opera
McCaw Hall, Seattle

Some exciting music is hiding in this mess. Moving the orchestra on stage, with soloists front and chorus behind (more or less) worked quite well, not only for the sound but also so that the whole could be read as a staged oratorio rather than as a theatrical presentation with invisibly produced accompaniment. It also helped to distract from the weakness of the libretto. The musicians, as always, were fabulous.

August 28, 2015
Found Sound + Found Objects = Found Music (and a piano)
S. Eric Scribner and Keith Eisenbrey
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Études d'exécution imminent - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, piano

My program notes:

Why? Études d'exécution imminent (2014) arose out of a desire for a music sized to the scale of human intimacy, for a music I could say simply, undeclaimed, for a music we could hear simply, uninflicted.

What? A work of speculative serialism, each of the eight etudes comprises three statements of a mod-17 tone row. The row is designed so that each successive group of four notes is maximally varied as to interval content, and so that the interval between successive notes in even order positions (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16) holds within the etude. In etude 1, this interval is 1 (half-step), in etude 2 it is 2 (whole-step), etc. This allowed me both a rich chromatic pallette and the possibility of an easily discernible regular progression.

Where? Between us.

When? Ever.

Who? Indeed!

Sounds Found (A Garbage Symphony) - S. Eric Scribner - Keith Eisenbrey and S. Eric Scribner, found objects, improvising with written instructions, to 21 pre-recorded sound files.

Steve's

{It was at this point in writing my blog on Saturday that the power went out for 6 hours. By the time it came back on I had other things to do, and assumed I could finish Sunday morning. But the power failed again at midnight and wasn't back up until we returned from church. Sunday afternoon was already spoken for with another event, Monday was Banned Rehearsal, and so it isn't until now (Tuesday evening) that I have a chance to finish my sentence (after having thought about it for 3 days)} 

music is a genuine ordeal, both physically and mentally, in the performing and in the listening. There is next to nothing to cling to. Even what should be familiar is so blatant, set so close to our face, as to be nearly impenetrable. It makes absolutely no attempt to entertain. It is dead set to take the measure of you.

The key is this: it is activity, and not piece, and as such it demands active listening in a way that nothing else I am aware of does. Is it great music? Probably not, but is that the be-all anyway? Is it worth the trouble (and it is considerable trouble)? For depth of engagement, for wealth of glorious noise, for magnificent unapologetic grandeur, absolutely. It's all there, but as the Boss says, the ride ain't free.

Neither Steve nor I are particularly good at publicity, nor are two middle-aged fellows much of a draw in and of ourselves, and so by the time the last pot lid faded our rather thin audience had dwindled to just Neal and Karen. I was never in it for popularity, but I like to think there are more folks in the area that are up for hard, dis-passive work.

Recorded

August 23, 2015
Smash Your Radio - The Primate 5 [from  The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Ramones style punk girl group arrangement fattened up with a keyboard sound lifted from The Wailers. Not sure where this band is from, but the sound is straight-up Tacoma.

for Milton - Martin Boykan - [from Milton Babbitt: A Composer's Memorial]

Laid bare as a thing of notes, embracing music as a literature. The written score designed specifically so that its printed information and the produced sound's perceived information is jammed as close together as possible.

Itene, o mieie sospiri -Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley
Konzert in G BWV 1049 - J.S. Bach - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

Made of bricks, as a theory of memory or of knowing.

August 27, 2015
Petites Pieces Wq. 117 #31 "L'Irresolue" - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

Music as pathology's mirror?

Sonata in E-flat Hob. XVI: Es.2 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 23, 2015
Trio 150823 - Keith Eisenbrey
Zither, slide whistle, and acoustic steel-string guitar (a Takemine on long-term loan from my brother Paul). The zither was thrown in my direction by a harp player ten or so years ago. It's kind of a wreck but it appears to be handmade from who knows what scraps. I would totally believe the strings to be the same stock as barbed wire is made from.

August 24, 2015
Gradus 273 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Live

June 19, 2015

Gradus (269) for Fux, Tesla, and Milo the Wrestler - Neal Kosály-Meyer
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

each ovoid mark was made to memorialize a played note, relative size representing locally perceived dynamic of attack. the vertical marks are the boundaries between rungs. Neal's score for the evening is printed below. Stop by in a week or so and the graphic won't collide with the side bar.

Recorded

June 16, 2015
Guitar Hell - Incredibly Strange Guitar - Pete Comley

Post Fripp, post progpunk (with undertones of Charles Dodge), all mastered with that FarTooClose® digital feel. Picaresque, but complicated by sudden interruptions. Getting his jollies with wrecked up sound.

On September 23, 2002, I wrote: "aside from being generally entertaining, what's fun about this is the flatfooted gadgetry of it. All segues are transparently what they are - no fooling here. It just is garbage."

Invention in C Minor - Billy Joel

Utterly unremarkable.

Vampire Mustache - Steaming Wolf Penis [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Its bald assertion of presence is as though it were clinging by fingernail to the edge of a precipice.

Donne III.19 -  Benjamin Boretz

as gently done as begun

an eternal residue suspended in an interior, limitless space.

June 17, 2015
Felicissomo sono - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

the commentary seeps in the window opened between D and E-flat.

Konzert in D Major BWV 1050 - Bach - Festival Strings Lucerne, Rudolf Baumgartner, Aurele Nicolete, Josef Suk, Christiane Jaccottet

Processes ripen to states. From states emerge processes.

Keyboard Sonata in C Wq. 48 #5 - CPE Bach - Miklos Spanyi
Keyboard Sonata in D Hob. XIV:5 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

In Session at the Tintinabulary

June 14, 2015
Duet 150614 - Keith Eisenbrey
Going into this session I was uncertain what I wanted to pair with clavichord. Among the most intriguing possibilities were washtub bass and tin whistle. In the end I did my best to play both at the same time.

June 15, 2015
Gradus 268 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

June 19, 2015
Chapel Elevator 150619 - Keith Eisenbrey


I had a free moment before Neal's Gradus performance to record the sound of Seattle's most sonorously engaging elevator rides.

Playlist

Recorded

May 9, 2015
Asciugate i begli occhi - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

Each statement of a poetic line possesses its own through-composed harmonic trajectory. Each breath and line break a unique response

Konzert in D Major BWV 1050 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

May 10, 2015

Keyboard Sonata in E Major Wq. 48 #3 - CPE Bach - Mikos Spanyi

For JSB ongoingness is a given, for CPEB it is a choice often unmade: backgoingness and restepping are close to being the norm.

Keyboard Sonata in F Major Hob. XVI.9 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

Anchored in the sensibility of the rational.

Concerto in F Major (#7) K 2424 - Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, Malcolm Bilson, Robert Levin, Melvyn Tan

This triple concerto is quite charming but a bit unwieldy, even for Mozart.

Sonata in E-flat Major Op. 27 #1 - Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff

Sinking into the stability implied by repetition, the variations eventually destabilize the whole. Music thirsting for its own destruction.

May 14, 2015
Allegro in B minor op. 8 - Schumann - Peter Frankl

A balloon fixed to an anchor, whipped by a typhoon.

12 Etudes op. 25 - Chopin - Alfred Cortot

Fancy, within strict bounds.

Reminiscences de Don Juan - Liszt - Jorge Bolet

This could be an episode from Dante: we chat with Don Juan in hell, defiant past the last.

In Session in the Tintinabulary
May 11, 2015
Banned Telepath 34 150511 Seattle
Banned Telepath 34 150511 Somerville
Banned Rehearsal 885 150511 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, and Neal Kosály-Meyer (in Seattle); and Aaron Keyt (in Somerville)

Playlist

Live

March 29, 2015

buttons, dollar each

Bicycle Face
Canals of Venice
Highway 99 Blues Club, Seattle

Bicycle Face is a personable trio performing a mostly acoustic set. They seemed almost alarmed to have microphones available. Their set started with a didactic-dramatic micro-musical - Pants - about the history of women wearing pants. I wish every museum display case could be that funny. A few props, minimal costumes (a hula hoop stands in for a hoop skirt), let's put on a show! The rest of the set consisted of songs like Hope the Gender Variant Chicken and a song about an Otter eating pancakes off its belly. Other than the up-to-date politics they would fit right in with Woody's Grow-Big Songs. Their EP is called Broken Umbrella - Karen and I were wondering if it was an alternate band name or (and) a reference to Gertrude Stein's "I have throwed my umbrella in the mud".

fun forest, Seattle Center, ca. 1972

Canals of Venice at long last performed their musical Martha Jane, a sordid femme fatale story with a Ferris wheel, a witch, a heart of gold, a rifle, and a beer. The characters, being (partly) part of the band, emerge from it as though in bas relief. It ends in a kind of hell-scape, giving the whole thing a trajectory not unlike Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique. The balance was terrific. Would that every show in every club could sound this good.

Recorded

April 2, 2015
O dolorosa gioia - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

Dark heavy draperies of counterpoint.

Konzert in B-flat Major BWV 1051 - Bach, Festival Strings Lucerne, Felix Baumgartner

Behind the affects are textures. Behind the textures are lines. Behind the lines are notes. From within each texture's line's notes patterns of meta-notes forming meta-lines forming meta-textures forming meta-affects.

Keyboard Sonata in E-flat Major Wq. 65 #7 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

At least here, the underlying model  is fancy coloratura singing. To that extent C.P.E. Bach is an interesting early model for Chopin's pianism.

Keyboard Sonata in G Major Hob.XVI:G1 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

Phrases sit just so within the key scheme, happy to be there, happy to be framing patterns out of their registral postures.

Concerto in C K. 246 - Mozart - English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, Michael Bilson

Mozart's phrases breathe like singers, and the whole creates a breathing space around itself.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 29, 2015
Sacajawea Playfield 150329 - Keith Eisenbrey

I recorded early morning bird song and modest traffic noise at this local city park.

Duet 150329 - Keith Eisenbrey

This day's pairing was tenor banjo and a concoction of zither, small cymbal, and a length of metal drain pipe.

March 30, 2015
Banned Telepath 31 150330 Seattle
Banned Telepath 31 150330 Somerville
Banned Rehearsal 852 150330 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy (in Seattle); and Aaron Keyt (in Somerville)

Playlist

Recorded

January 27, 2015
Index Filicum - Steve Peters

Up front there are three strands to the sound. The first is a throbbing resonance, like the last moments of I am sitting in a room. The second are voices whispering what we discover to be the common names of ferns. The third are voices singing what I soon guessed (correctly) to be the Latin scientific names of ferns. The singing voices join together variously in duets and trios and such, studiously paced from few at first to many at last. Words with and without voice. The shape of mouths's chambers speaking with and without sustaining resonance, sustained on a chamber's resonance. Whispers brush against our skin, familiarly.

Gioite voi col canto - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

A single utterance, in parts indivisible.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 25, 2015
Figure Study 150125
Figure Study 150125 folded
Figure Study 150125 folded rubbed - Keith Eisenbrey

This week I improvised on my big piano.

January 26, 2015
Gradus 258 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

For many years each of Neal's Gradus sessions has consisted of two 20-minute parts, or rungs. This is done in order to speed the progression through the combinations of notes. When he got finished with all the combinations of A-naturals a decision was made to select at random only certain combinations as each new note was introduced. The global effect is to exponentially increase the rate at which progression is made, in the hope of getting to the final combination of all 88 notes at some point within our lifetimes. The last rung of this session consisted of all the A and E naturals. Next up, so I'm told, is C-sharp.

Listening to 40 minutes of A and E I find that my hearing quickly forgets the pitch-class distinction between them. I don't have perfect pitch, and I find at some point, if I want to know whether a note that Neal is playing is A or E, I have to figure it out, usually by discovering which end of a 4th or 5th it's on. I found it interesting how easy it was to treat all of them as being just a single pitch class consisting of all A's and E's - structurally identical at some level. A particularly warped kingdom - a lumpy geometry of pitchspace.

Playlist

Recorded

November 23, 2014

First Burroughs - Mt. Rainier National Park - September 2014

Tu m'uccidi, o crudele - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

The second statement of anything turns empty, bitter, dry.

Konzert in D BWV 1050 - J. S. Bach - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

A nicely balanced recording mostly, with no part artificially pushed to the front so that there exists a reasonable stratification both of instrumental timbres and dynamics. As a happy result, we journey down into the harpsichord's realm at the solo instead of having it dumped on our heads.

Symphony in D (#15) - Haydn - The Hanover Band, Roy Goodman

This opens with what would later have been a middle movement. I love the fluid concept of what a symphony could be made of in those early days, and of how it could hang together, or not, as occasions suggest.

Symphony in D minor K74c(118) - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

For example, this single movement "symphony" to an oratorio . . .

Sonata in A flat Op. 26 - Beethoven - Artur Schnabel

Variations that proceed by pulling back to reveal that we have held still. Each variation is of a goodly heft. Consequently the Scherzo comes across as about the same size as one of them, the Funeral March as about that same size as three of them, in A B A immobility, and the Finale likewise: about that size.

November 25, 2014
Symphony in C (String Symphony #1) - Mendelssohn - English Bach Festival Orchestra, William Boughton

Mukilteo, Washington - November 2014

In Session at the Tintinabulary

November 23, 2014
Takemine 141123 - Keith Eisenbrey

Improvising on one of my brother's acoustic steel string guitars, on long term loan at the Tintinabulary.

November 24, 2014
Banned Telepath 24 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy
Banned Telepath 24 Somerville - Aaron Keyt
Banned Rehearsal 874 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

In the old days when when we made a telepath we had to wait for the cassette to be mailed or brought back from parts afar. Now the distant bits are in my email the next morning.

November 27, 2014
Chickens 141127 - Keith Eisenbrey

At another brother's house for Thanksgiving, I made this short recording of their four chickens clucking and erupting.

Playlist

Live

 

September 4, 2014

Canals of Venice

The Spencer Glenn Band

Your Mother Should Know

Rendezvous - Seattle

Canals of Venice

 

The orchestration of Canals of Venice is gelling nicely. They were shy their trumpet player, which is a shame, but the gluey duo string harmony of viola and cello is an effective foil to Rob and Emily's duo of vocal timbres. That and all the parts, or each separately, can operate as adjuncts to the deliciously subtle drums. Both Rob and Emily have strong stage presences and are blessed with complementary levels of garrulousness. In short, a tremendously interesting and musically ambitious band that is fun to hear and re-hear.

 

The Spencer Glenn Band

The Spencer Glenn Band checks in as among the most exquisitely balanced ensembles I've heard in awhile. Spencer has a lovely light tenor that floats easily into falsetto, a bit (but just a bit) as though Simon could lift into Garfunkle and ease back. The arrangements are delicate and tight, free of showboating, everybody playing the song, rather than their axe.

 

Playing last, late on a Thursday night, the crowd had thinned out considerably by the time Neal & Karen took the stage. The set has been stripped down to just the rockers and moved along at a lively clip. Those who had to leave missed a honey.

Your Mother Should Know

 

And I would like to give kudos to Zach, the stage-manager and sound-person. He took great care that everybody sounded good, and did a fine job of both being clearly in charge and making everyone feel welcome. If the ghost that haunts the venue would like to return the two kick-drum feet that dropped into the void (one on the way in, one on the way out) Karen would be most appreciative.

 

September 5, 2014

Seattle Composers Salon

Angelique Poteat

Jessika Kenney

Jim Knapp

Paul Gillespie

 

From Subterranea - Poteat

 

where we start is our stability and our return

where we go is tied to where we start

we return tied - elastic

 

Didn't catch the name - Kenney

 

whisper presence among voice

rooted :: up- or re- ??

circuit ritual a canon unwinding into

presence whisper air

 

Two Tunes  - Jim Knapp

 

The strength (and weakness) of jazz is one and the same with the strength (and weakness) of Bach: It is a language for solving problems posed, and it is always possible to find a way out from within itself, but the out it finds is illusory, a trick of mind, since it is still itself. I didn't catch the pianist's name, but he was fabulous.

 

Woodwind Trio - Gillespie

 

If this were a short story the words would be small, the sentences brisk, and the plot cabalistic.

 

Recorded

 

September 2, 2014

O tenebroso giorno - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

 

Each line, or set of lines, is set in an increasing complexity of imitative overlay, elision, and interfolding. Thoughts thicken, turn, and feed upon themselves. It ends because things end, but there is no resolution.

 

Konzert in G BWV 1048 - J.S. Bach - Festival Strings Lucerne, Rudolf Baumgartner

 

Pericope and Sermon. All derives from one, over and again. The universe is floriated, not cross-associated, not integrated.

 

Sonata in A Wq. 48 #6 - C.P.E. Bach - Bob von Asperen

 

Larded with discursive footnotes and comments. Worldly, scholarly, glossed and cross-bred.

 

September 3, 2014

Quartet in B-flat Op. 1 #1, Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

 

Solid. No nonsense here.

 

Symphony in D K111a(120) - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, Jaap Schroder

 

Complete in its knowledge of what an orchestra is for, but doesn't have a clue as to what it might be capable of.

 

Sonata in C-sharp minor Op. 27 #2 - Beethoven - Gieseking

 

Just how little resonance can one get away with? Studied hesitation to clarify the melody, restrained throughout - except for a moment or three in the last movement when the earth shakes.

 

Symphony in D (String Symphony #2) - Mendelssohn - English Bach Festival Orchestra, William Boughton

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

September 1, 2014

Zuckermann 140901 - Keith Eisenbrey

 

An improvisation on clavichord.

 

Gradus 250 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

A session cut short by a family emergency, happily it all ended well.

Playlist

Live

 

May 31, 2014

Ian Grunfeld

back steps up which roadies haul drums and gear

Your Mother Should Know

On The Ground

Tom Price Desert Classic

Ancient Warlocks

High Dive, Seattle

 

A decade and more ago Ian Grunfeld sang in the Humidiflyers, the first local band Karen and I followed at Neal's instigation, and the first going concern in that arena whose members we got to know a little. Even then we were among the older folks in the room, but being related to Neal, who knew them from his work at EMP, we were greeted with friendly respect. They produced several fine recordings, but young people often find themselves with other things they need to do so they eventually broke up. With a guitar on a strap and joined by a mandolin player Ian sang labor songs to kick off the evening, which was a benefit for the Seattle Wobblies. It was great to hear that voice again.

 

Your Mother Should Know

YMSK (Karen Eisenbrey and Neal Kosály-Meyer), having been hard at work recording an album, haven't played out much recently. But after all that practice working up songs, actually performing some of them comes as a relief. I remember the first time they played the High Dive I was still in the proud daddy mode of constantly worrying they'd fall apart. But they never have so I've gotten over it.

 

On The Ground was the only band of the evening I hadn't heard before. They play fast and loud, all the instrumentals tightly bound rhythmically. The vocals, a drill sergeant ear shout or an over the emotional edge parental nag, but at a clip, slices into the instrumental rhythm as though dropped from a height.

 

Seattle stalwart Tom Price stakes a claim somewhere between Iggy Pop and Bob Dylan, with a band full of musician's musicians to match. Ancient Warlocks rely on clearly articulated slow changes to allow their huge sound to sink in. The walls begin to glow.

 

Recorded

 

June 3, 2014

Occhi del mia cor vita - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

 

Each syllable in each voice is a major event, we focus absolutely on each local event. The outside does not exist.

 

Konzert in F BWV 1046 - Bach - Festival Strings Lucerne, Rudolf Baumgartner

 

How we repeat each other. How we fit. How we glorify each other. How grace flows from above.

 

Sonata in F Wq. 48 - C.P.E. Bach - Bob van Asperen

 

Evening games. A dinner party. So nice to see you all.

 

Grande Jeu with Thunder - Michel Corrette - David Di Fiore

 

Here thunder is an effect, bald and blatant. No great attempt is made to integrate it into the fabric of whatever the music was doing on the side, or even to make it strange or other to that music. A ready-made curiosity.

 

Symphony in B flat (#16) - Haydn - The Hanover Band, Roy Goodman

 

There was a time when symphonies did not need to be grand. This one concerns itself with the sizes of things as lensed by how they fit in the meter that they are creating.

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

June 2, 2014

Banned Rehearsal 860 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

 

June 5, 2014

Hey Hey Hey - Keith Eisenbrey

 

First go at a new project, by revisiting an old one.

 

Upcoming

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Playlist

Tonight!

 

Recorded

 

April 6, 2014

They Should Have Known - Sgt. Major [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

Lessons From The Ancestors - Steve Peters

 

A study in the modalities of human vocalization, paned by bells. The whole is gorgeously rendered, but the successive joints (if successive is exactly the right word here) between bell segment and MOHV segment, and from MOHV segment to bell segment, are exquisitely timed and tuned, each flip a revelation in both directions.

 

Mohrentanz - Tielman Susato - David Di Fiore

 

In listening to older music I am often struck by how differently the balance of focus among beat, meter, and phrase is handled from composer to composer, and from century to century. Here they come out almost equal to my ear, with phrase perhaps slyly holding a finger on the scale.

 

Quai fora, donna - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

 

The textural shifts are as alarming as the harmonic.

 

Konzert in F BWV 1046 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

 

Bob van Asperen

April 7, 2014

Sonata in C minor Wq. 48 #4 - C.P.E. Bach - Bob van Asperen

 

A hall of parenthetical mirrors, the infra-movement variety of affect looks forward to the Mahlerian world-symphonies.

 

April 8, 2014

Quartet in E-flat Op. 1. #2 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

 

This lives in its hinges.

 

Symphony in B-flat K74g - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

 

But this lives in how firmly it anchors the sense of scale-degree inside the particulars of its melodies.

 

Sonata in G op. 49 #2 - Beethoven - Arthur Schnabel

Symphony in B-flat D.485 - Schubert - Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Münchinger

 

And this, though the finale is phoned in, lives in the highly charged color of its modulatory sequences.

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

easily the best guitar case of the bunch

April 6, 2014

Franciscan 140406 - Keith Eisenbrey

 

 On my mom's 1960's nylon-string guitar (freshly restrung).

 

April 7, 2014

Banned Rehearsal 856 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

 

 

 

Upcoming

 

May 2, 2014

Seattle Composers Salon

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle 8pm

 

I will be performing selections from my work in progress Etudes d'execution imminente.

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

 

 

 

Playlist

Upcoming This Week

 

Seattle Composers Salon

Saturday, March 7, 2014 at 8pm

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

 

Featured composers:

Clement Reid

Coreena

Aaron Keyt

Jay Hamilton

 

I will be performing Aaron Keyt's Sonata (2012) for solo piano - a Haydn sonata skewed inside out, rejiggered upside down, and refracted on an oblique plane.

 

Recorded

 

February 23, 2014

Banned Rehearsal 57 (Telepath 5 Mix) - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Karen Meyer, Neal Meyer - December 1985

 

The Telepath projects have, if you'll pardon the pun, mixed results. In this instance, the variety of recording procedures among the input tapes turns the output into an interesting dialogue about transparence and opacity, their strongly segmented structures of protracted static episodes combine to tell a tale in postures of room size, and the joint effect of three noisy heaters provides a solid standing ground. One of the winners.

 

Extracts 12 - Keith Eisenbrey - December 2010

 

The last iteration in my study of Scriabin's Prelude op. 74 #4. For details concerning this project see last week's post.

 

Banned Rehearsal 60 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer - December 1985

 

Vocalization, guitar thwangk and tongue drum. Little room is left, the sounds each fill their space, butt up against each other. Mass ukulele. Some songs: Sunday in the Metropolis espresso shops are closed / need a new pair of shoes but the shoe stores are all closed / head is splitting Sunday in the Metropolis / fogged in airplane goes round and round can't get to the ground / airplane food don't taste good :: If I started singing about a lizard on a tree / would you pull that robe away / would you set me free? :: Ain' No Easy Woman.

 

Figure Study 6 - Keith Eisenbrey - December 2010

 

A solo piano improvisation. The occasional close temporal proximity of incidents doesn't change the overall extreme slowness of the pace. The point here is to hold steady, like a mountain.

 

Banned Rehearsal 61 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Karen Meyer, Neal Meyer - December 1985

 

Starts quietly with wind instruments and other sustainers. So thin it is hard to believe there are five people in the room. For 40 minutes this is not about its tapeness, it is simply a recording of an improvisation session. The point of the session was us, not the result. The moment the microphone is addressed the spell is broken.



 

End and Begin

Maple Leaf, Seattle - February 2014

 

At this point a word of explanation will be useful for my readers, who may have noticed a preponderance of music from 1985 and 2010 in recent postings. Since my early twenties I have kept a database of the recorded music in my collection. It started on notecards, moved to a program written by my brother Paul, then for many years in Paradox, and finally now in Access. As the size of the collection increased I developed a method of choosing the next selection for listening. This essentially involves moving progressively and repeatedly through time, in an increment of 50 years. In other words, I would listen to something from 1750, then from 1800, then from 1850, etc., repeat until that cycle was exhausted, then step up to 1751, 1801, 1851, and so on. At the beginning of 2009, I decided to switch to an increment of 5 years, and since that time I have been listening to that segment of my collection stemming from years ending in "0" or "5". Banned Rehearsal was especially prolific in 1985, and there were also, apparently, a great many selections in 2010, so as I got to the end of the list these years remained. Now it is time to move on to years ending in "1" and "6". At this time there are nearly two thousand selections in that group, so I'll be at it for a while. There is some wonderful music out there. Enjoy!

 

February 26, 2014

Missa pro defunctis a 5 - Palestrina - Chanticleer, Joseph Jennings

 

Within a circumscribed world, placement and attitude gain subtle precision. Spinning out, starting over, starting spinning, over, out.

 

"T'amo, mia vita!" - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

 

Liquid time, wrapping around to look back.

 

Konzert in B, BWV 1051 - J.S. Bach - Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan

 

Repeated beginnings echo and fall away, ever-flowing weaves articulated only ever-so-gently by cadence.

 

Februray 27, 2014

Sonata in C, Wq. 48 #5 - C.P.E. Bach - Bob Von Asperen

 

As though multiple bits of several sonatas provide platforms for sudden articulations - always about the new place it is going to or is suddenly being or is poised from which to leap.

 

Variations canoniques sur le chant de Noel: Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her, BWV 769 - J.S. Bach - Michel Chapuis

 

Each polyphonically active state is complete and worked out, each voice spinning cooperatively - how they fit more than how they go along. No loose ends here.

 

Quartet in G, Op. 1 #4 Hob. III:4 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

 

In C.P.E. Bach the role played by invertible counterpoint as a driver of formal trajectory is still huge. In that he was his father's son. Here that role has been effaced by the play of musical phrases with their metrical balance and intricate tonal relations. A new regime.

 

Symphony in D, K. 32 - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

 

An insinuating charm within the splash and fuss.

 

Sonata in G, Op. 49 #2 - Beethoven - Emil Gilels

 

Intensely understated, making exactly no more of it than it itself is.

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

February 23, 2014

Takemine 140223 - Keith Eisenbrey

 

Improvisation on solo acoustic guitar.

 

Sylvania 140223 - Keith Eisenbrey

 

I finger drummed on a spent incandescent bulb. Lux defunctis.

 

Upcoming

 

April 12, 2014 - 8 PM 

A Cat's Life Returns Again - a recital by Keith Eisenbrey, piano, with special guest Olivia Sterne, narrator

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Attitude - Doug Palmer

Greek Nickel 2 - J. K. Randall

Sonata (2012) - Aaron Keyt

A Cat's Life, a little opera for solo piano (1990) - Keith Eisenbrey

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle