Playlist

Recorded

February 4, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 437 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 1996]

waiting for the right door to come around

Neal, ca 1996

so that we can step in and do that dance

Neal Sax Keith Guitar Aaron Violin or Anna Violin
big squeeeeeek toy wailing and shredding (shredding in our own way)
big sax sound we hack at and scrape at

rather a battlefield of standing waves
(more a working-at-things session than a presentation-ready session)

First: ascertain the exact contours of our present argument
Next: compose together a chord - for want of a better word - a harmony perhaps - precisely in the
temperament of the contours of our present argument

gets quiet down to the hiss
and moving about put the baby on the back
barely whistling

Banned Rehearsal 625 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2001]

the differences in distance between the senses of presence is a thicket
frog marimba wash tub bass piano tiny plunk
discuss in prose paragraphs amidst all these drums

but because it was a thicket of distances these new ones enfold the old ones
layered pasts layered in layered presence

zither drone drumming AM radio am speaking to you from a great distance
FM radio am here with you in your room

drum beating makes a name for itself in this rather hot playback

Isabel protospeaks

Hypernova - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

an opera or the entracte for the Hyperprog Band of LEGEND!
wanders close to Nancarrow through the basement watercloset back of a famous minimalist's seedy beginnings

Gradus 191 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 2011]

dynamic range and its echoes
watch your fingers
might get chopped

Arsenic & Lace - Strange Like Us [from Strange Peeps]

Mixed thick with snarl and c'mere baby
freak flag freakflagfly freak flag freakflagfly (repeat)

February 6, 2018

A Voluntarie, "For My Ladye Nevell" - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

Ornamentfarbenmelodien

each and every element of texture both homogeneous - to easily fit together - and granular, specific, high-definition - to curve just so
on multiple scales

Partita in B-flat Major - J. S. Bach - Gunther Hasselmann

proceeds in a series of direct lines
only wending with friction or drag of mode and dissonance
living to break free

offset lines drag each other
but still direct
looking ahead

the Sarabande's stumbling ornaments balance perfectly

O Death Where Is Thy Sting - Rev. J. M. Gates [from Anthology of American Folk Music]

near to singing in tongues
cooperating independencies

Pastures of Plenty - Woody Guthrie [from Columbia River Collection]

us migrants. US migrants.
must always be free (not the migrants, the pastures)
more land reform propoganda
yowza!

Mine - The Voices of Walter Schumann [a Rescued Record]

for choreographed singing
as for Broadway, or as a demo for a Variety TV Spectacular


Ain't She Sweet - The Beatles [from Beatles Anthology Volume 1]

eyes on the prize burning bright

Ninety-Nine And A Half Won't Do - Wilson Pickett [collected from Dave Marsh's Heart of Rock & Soul]

the pitch qualia of the bass line is obscured, or given a specific index, by the kick drum (which is huge)

Unnamed Track 3 - Tillicum Junior High School Band, Bob Runyan, director [on March 3, 1971, from my mom's tape]

pretty sweet horn solo. cornet, trumpet, flugel?

February 8, 2018

Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (#3) - Gorecki - Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Antoni Wit

count to 3
nest it
slow and fugueish

A.H. in the dark
or a clownless Shostakovitch
Pachelbel's Canon with depression

narrow, bound
the voice enters singing what might be, might as well be, partitions of the identical close stepwise counterpointing texture stuff

all frame
no mona lisa

why do I so mistrust the politics of this?
Is it possible to hire people to put themselves through this?

interminabularity to the max, man
grinding to an eternal halt

oh boy a coda

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 5, 2018
Gradus 257 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

distances unbridged
left distant
drift off

singular light source
like morning

Playlist

Recorded

February 12, 2017
Morris Clyfford - Arthur Margolin, J. K. Randall [from Inter/Play]

Two voices, call them Plain and Fancy, make attitudinal micro-adjustments to each other, each chomping at the bit to engage, but neither desiring the other to give up an inch of what they are. Dog bark in the next room joins the rhythm, and suddenly the co-agonists find themselves occupying a mutual corner. That's just about when the tape ran out.

Who We Hatin' Now, Mr. Reagan?- The Center for Disease Control Boys

Broad political comedy, mostly for each other.

One7 - John Cage - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Muttered in secret || DECLAIMED!

February 14, 2017
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone - Sleater-Kinney [from Call The Doctor]

I love the quick-echo between the vocalists. Grooving on the texture of close-packed material.

Banned Rehearsal 608 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey,  Anna K, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Spiral up incline slow vista shift toward intimate familiar || radio fog dissipates, as the.

Do the Stomp and Drag - Glorious Day [from The Funhouse Comp Thing]

In punk-face: If you are treated like a zombie you may as well dance the dance.

Isaiah 6:1-5 - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at University Temple United Methodist Church, on December 21, 2014]

The recording linked above was done in the studio. The live version was recorded during the Offering, which adds a great deal of extraneous noise.

High Plains Drifter - Denise Glover [from Pathways]

The pages of this hand-scrawled book, a bit narrow for the lines, are full and generously so. The letters give each other room to sing.

February 16, 2017
Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapunctus 6 - J. S. Bach - Lionel Rogg

Two fugues crammed so tightly together that stray bits extrude suddenly into oddly contoured voids. Quartz in schist.

Menuet in D Major I and II Wq. 116/3 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

Lighter than air, the glance into minor thrills, a mutual stillness.

Symphony in D Major (#96) - Haydn - Austro Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer

What might break out into the open from within the polite.

Quartet in B-flat op. 130 - Beethoven - Amadeus Quartet

Gets going by never quite having been got going so that each :: place from which :: never is a place deflected || from this we persist || systemic flaws and their extensions

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 12, 2017

Ghosting Doubles (first) (after Amy Denio's "Ghosting") - midi realization

I had been working since late last year on the next part of a long project, an extension of my Etudes

d'execution imminent, and had gotten pretty far along on a hunk of sound generated by a pretty ferocious chart. When I heard Amy Denio's fabulous solo accordion piece, Ghosting, recently I immediately thought that I would use that as the basis, in some way, for the next part. But on Saturday I had, as Ben put it once, "a better idea", and the above is the first of three (?) sets of doubles upon her tune. For those with a quick ear, the middle voice in the above is a simple transcription of Amy's original. ("Ghosting", copyright Spoot Music, ASCAP, is used by kind permission of the composer.)

I rather like the bald, frill-less, un-finessed midi sound of this version, though I do plan on learning to play it myself as well.

February 13, 2017

Banned Telepath 54 Seattle 170213 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

February 15, 2017

Banned Telepath 54 Anchorage 170215 - Aaron Keyt

Banned Rehearsal 929 (170213-15) - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Aaron's bit is a wonderful 19-second long Moog-App twiddle. Neal speaks of cabbages and death. Steve and I find a new way to torture the atomatone. Karen rings bells.

February 17, 2017

Partita - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey

Kingston Bridge, New York, ca 1982

I have been attempting to learn this piece of Ben's, composed in 1955, for decades now, on and off. This version, recorded yesterday morning, is a pretty good picture of how well I'm doing this time around. I think I could still fix some of the more egregious bits of rushing, and clean up a not-quite-together attack or two here and there, but beyond that I'm not sure I'll ever play it much better. It always has been just a bit past the limits of my available technique.

Playlist

Recorded

January 14, 2017
I Fought The Law - Bobby Fuller Four [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Nice triplets in there. I love the dipthong on "law", curling back on itself as though hitting resistance. Almost appropriate: Karen and I recently watched "I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang", which has some truly amazing sound events in it, as well as a fascinating view of the connection between the penal system and slavery.

Samuel Barber

Prayers of Kierkegaard - Samuel Barber - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Schenck

The solid tonal sensibility loses grip in places, it works to break free, struggling slowly, manages to unsettle the more settled.

John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie [from Changes One]

Technically perfect song-writing. The voice pushes at the instrumentals, as though it were trapped in their cage.

You Better You Bet - The Who [from Face Dances]

Postural pullback, only to return to full frontal, hiding the low point of tenderness from prying eyes. Or letting it hang.

Violin Concerto - Henri Lazarof - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Yukiko Kamei

Icy spreads its arms and twists 

acrobatique 

aerialesque 

orchestral circus stage 

big top fire breathing peril 

here come the clowns sardonic 

self regarding self 

chatty nervous

Janaury 16, 2017
Adagio (3rd Movement from 11th Symphony) - David Diamond - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

Triumphal weariness, as settling to the ocean floor's deepest trench, through its subtle gradations of dark.

Good Things - Sleater-Kinney [from Call The Doctor]

Held close, stiffly still, simmering under pressure.

Work Architecture Unity And The ("17 Crags" 010511) - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Isabel K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Second go at it. A sense of enforced singularity of event, severing any particular participant's interest or curiosity. Salutary to the extent we find a way to do what we always do but spread over thinner space. Or: an exercise in leaving space so that we can't always fall into the always-going-on-ness, leaving space for sharper corners?

Judith Shatin

Homemade Music - Judith Shatin [from Open Space 21]

Intervals Between Events: A Study.
Intersections of sets of distances between events as motivic cells. Clearly, so as to index the sets.

The Dancer - Patrick Marland [from Hendrix Uncovered]

Easily lovely. the bass is subtly amped, close the fingerboard.

January 17, 2017
Finnegans Wake Chapter 1.3 - Steve Gregoropoulos [from Waywords and Meansigns]

Spoken with attitude. 'scuse, with AttiTude. The music allowed to attempt to overpower, the vocal imitating the lingo of partisan journalism. Drunken sbrawling squalities. Text just one ring of a circus co-occupied by dueling Captain Beefheart Impersonators, infiltrated by multiple iterations of the Chaotic Noise Marching Corps. Babble of neverending political speech. Each music change: to enter a new room.

January 19, 2017
Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapunctus V - J. S. Bach - Lionel Rogg

How they do crowd upon each other! At the end (and this is frequent in these fugues) there is the sense of "OK, now we're ready to really dive in, now that the preliminaries are over."

Alla Polacca in C Major Wq. 116/4 - C.P.E. Bach - Miklos Spanyi

The purpose of ornamentation is to skew counting, to turn tables on the concept of number. These little pieces are about meter in a way that little else is again until Chopin's Mazurkas.

Symphony in E-flat Major (#76) - Haydn - Hanover Band, Roy Goodman

It is not simply that he moves in the unexpected way (surprise!) but that he gauges each unexpectedness so carefully, veering just so far along the circle of fifths, just so much further at the structural hingepoints: Where we have gotten to determines the depth and yaw of the veer. The slow movement has a focus that allows a huge dynamic range (a model for Schubert's late sonatas?) Then an extra fancy last movement.

Ave Verum Corpus - Mozart - University Temple Chancel Choir, Keith Eisenbrey, director, Howard Wolvington, organ

Last Fall our choir director, Chris Vincent, was in Italy and kindly allowed me to take the choir for a few weeks. He even let me conduct this justly famed anthem from late in Mozart's short life, for which I remain ever so thankful. What a pleasure! Listening one becomes so rapt that it is not until it winds down into the cadential trill that one realizes what a ride one has been on. A bit like life that way.

Sonata in A-flat Major Op. 110 - Beethoven - Rudolf Serkin

An earnest attempt to clearly play what is clearly there. He makes some interesting connections among the tempi in the fugal bits.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 16, 2017
Banned Rehearsal 927 170116 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Aaron is back from the far north for a few weeks. Hurrah!

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

March 12, 2016
Seattle Opera
McCaw Hall, Seattle

Mary Stuart - Donizetti

Donizetti

After all these years I may finally be coming around to Italian opera that isn't by Mozart. In particular I have had problems with what seemed to me a mismatch between the affect (light and silly) and the dramatic moment (dire). But here the clarity of the accompaniment, be it ever so boom chick, can be heard as a constant surface of quiddity, beneath, above, and around which are spun melodies of extreme sophistication, and even within which unexpected transformations unfold. These are the grounds of the Berliozian affectual non sequitur. The ensembles are stunningly supple, and there was a moment in the big chorus just before Mary Stuart's last entrance where the choral writing opens into unexpected dimensions, as though we suddenly are aware of the abyss beneath us. Murderous power struggles should not be so timely, alas.

March 18,2016
Jeremy Denk - President's Piano Series
Meany Hall, Seattle

William Byrd

English Suite #3 in G minor, BWV 808 - J. S. Bach
Sunflower Slow Rag - Scott Hayden and Scott Joplin
Piano Rag Music - Stravinsky
Ninth Pavan and Galliard in D minor from Lady Nevell's Book - Byrd
Ragtime from 1922 - Hindemith
Graceful Ghost Rag - William Bolcom
Canon - Conlon Nancarrow
Pilgrim's Chorus from Tannhäuser - Donald Lambert
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 - J. S. Bach

Jeremy plays with such tender poetry and intricate clarity it seems bad form to quibble, but I do wish he would refrain from all the head wagging and foot kicking. I made the mistake of opening my eyes at the end of the Stravinsky, just in time to catch a flat falling winsome gesture. Please! But aside from my problems with ill-fitting showmanship this was a tremendous evening of fascinating music. His retrospective of crazy rhythms was spot on, though I'm sorry he didn't play Art Tatum's Tea for Two, which was in the program but not performed. The Goldberg Variations were ravishing.

Recorded

March 13, 2016
8 Lieder: Auf dem Kirchhofe, Op. 105 #4; Der Jäger, Op. 95 #4; Regenlied; Sapphische Ode Op. 94 #4; Ständchen, Op. 106 #1; Therese, Op. 86 #1; Vergebliches Ständchen, Op. 84 #4; Wie Melodien Zieht es mir, Op. 105 #1 - Brahms - Janet Baker, Andre Previn

When I ripped these from vinyl I made no attempt to number the tracks, so this mini-recital was reassembled in alphabetical order. Each song has a complete and ornate frame. When the song is done it stays done.

March 15, 2016
Das Lied von der Erde - Mahler - New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich

The symphonic accompaniment plays the part of a cloud of familiars besetting the singer, echoing, mocking. An ever-renewing, inescapable farewell.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 14, 2016
Gradus 286 160314 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

In the first rung, among the As and Es up high all the C-sharps were gathered toward the bottom the keyboard, so that the whole came across as a big first-inversion triad.

In the second rung, two or many threads weave in gentle diagonals, ripples on a frictionless pond - or a diaphanous friction is intimated in the refraction of sound upon sound.

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

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

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

Recorded

July 21, 2014

Pete Comley - July 2014

The Sentient Insect Variations: Zoar Valley - Pete Comley and Dave Fuglewicz

 

Our progress is a descent, spelunking through a viscous gelatin, thick with signal, gas-giant deep, to the mighty thrum of the world swarm.

 

My notes from a previous listening on October 26, 2002: Wild and beautiful. Like some crazy urban jungle heard through several timewarps through several scales of magnitude at once. The sci-fi film score to kill them all. Dangerously intense - gird your loins! At last we descend into the crater: wasp-lava.

 

Ambarabusaraba - Quintetto alla Busara

 

Music for social dancing, as opposed to couples dancing. Competitive in the sense that lifts the whole rather than in the sense that comes out on top.

July 22, 2014

The New Mother: 2 Excerpts - John Rahn [from Open Space 21]

 

Piles of eels or worms coalescing into the sensibility of voice - wheels of bird flights.

 

Call It What You Will - Matthew Barber [from Milton Babbitt: a Composers' Memorial]

 

A set of artifacts for violin, piano, and electronics, remarkable for the disparate senses in which the spaces enclose the sounds. The distinctions between togetherness and alienation are completely unfinessed, or baldly composed to sound as little like parts of the same piece as possible. Fascinating.

 

Hat Island, Washington

Poiche l'avida sete (Prima parte) - Gesualdo - Consort of Musicke, Anthony Rooley

 

Layers of stagnant suspensions pull back to reveal us: mechanical.

July 23, 2014

Konzert in F, BWV 1047 - J.S. Bach - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

 

Ben Boretz once opined that Klemperer's recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos made them sound like something Stravinsky might have cooked up. This one is surely the prime example. You could almost count the legato phrasings on one hand.

July 24, 2014

Sonata in B, Wq. 48 #2 - C.P.E. Bach - Bob van Asperen

 

Slightly irregular. Sudden dark turns.

 

Quartet in D, Hob. III:3 - Haydn - Tatrai Quartet

 

There are some fabulous legato hocket passages here that could have been in the back of Tchaikovsky's mind for the last movement of the Pathetique.

 

Symphony in G, K75b(110) - Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Chriostopher Hogwood, Jaap Schroder

 

Grabs a sonority and hangs on tight.

 

Sonata in C-sharp minor op. 27 #2, - Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff

 

Kempff believes in the power of clarity as a core value. If the performance lacks something in visceral thrill it nevertheless brings forward a solid image of tonal function, immovable but transformable.

July 25, 2014

Symphony in C minor (#4) - Schubert - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Karl Böhm

 

Long lines, multi-stage slow builds, major landmarks - this music imagines around itself an extensive world, rather than the infinitely reflexive social chamber of the court or church.

 

Symphony in E minor (String Symphony #3) - Mendelssohn - English Bach Festival Orchestra, William Boughton

 

Interesting as clockwork, but as a thing it is more like an old-fashioned concerto grosso than like a Beethoven (or even a Haydn) string quartet.

 

Valse in E-flat Op. 18 - Chopin - Alfred Cortot

 

At once a one-man-band imitation of a waltz orchestra and the evocation of being in a waltzworld: fluttery hearts and flights of romance and passion. Not a waltz, but what a waltz is.

 

Remeniscences de Don Juan  - Liszt - Charles Rosen

 

Always a good idea to start with the hell-fire since it makes a great show. What fun! Brimstone ale, cool! Party on!

 

Overture, Scherzo and Finale, Op. 52  - Schumann - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

 

Light and dark but mostly light, though it starts in a dark corner of a dark world where what counts as a door to brightness comes across as a passing shadow in the light of day.

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

July 21, 2014

Gradus 247 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

[weight - duration] [order] (in that order). Simultaneity of order operates as a reset and an articulation point. Weight and Duration operate on local relations - The distance of their orderings matters to how much they matter.

 

Upcoming

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Skylark (Seattle) 

Your Mother Should Know

Canals of Venice

Bucktoad

 

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