Playlist

Recorded

Eugene Istomin

September 18, 2016
Concerto in C minor K.491 - Mozart - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Eugene Istomin

The spirit of wandering in delight can only come to terms with, can only be brought back to remembrance of, the Stern Truth, by wandering with delight and wonder through it.

metacomment: in contradistinction to violin concerto-ness, where the solo line plays the part of a singer, of language bearer, and the orchestra however integrated is the pit band; piano concerto-ness is a meeting of equivalent universes - the piano clarifies, interprets, analyzes, the orchestra. It teaches us how to hear it.

September 22, 2016
Piano Concerto in G Op. 58 (#4) - Beethoven - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Georg Solti, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Big in every way, but . . .

1. announces its solo sound so that the orchestra is already an interpretation, an inverted concerto. The orchestra is taught to be a piano.
2. The balance between/among: dynamic level and duration of passage || size and number || focus || implied and explicit. Love how, at the join, string sound and piano sound conjoin: pizzicato as a structural gambit.
3. The piano is taught to be an orchestra (and hearkening back to 2. with the modulation on the quiet pizzicato.)

Peter Katin

Polonaise-Fantasie in A-flat Major Op. 61 - Chopin - Peter Katin

Fiercely unsentimental. Completely poetic, but so with a bone hard poetry of philosophical assertion. No swooning tulips here. Let's get serious folks, this music is talk.

Ages ago, at the time he was recording the complete Polonaises, Peter Katin was a regular on the Compu-Serve classical music forum. I had been looking forward to purchasing the CDs when they were released, but just at that time we had hour-reductions at work and money got tight. Peter sent them to me gratis. I am sorry to learn that he passed away last year at the age of 84.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 19, 2016
Gradus 298 160919 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Live

July 30, 2016
Secret Forest Show
John Teske and Neil Welch with friends
Ravenna Park, Seattle

John's piece had us up off our duffs to wander atop the duff, down the trail to a clearing by the creek. Figuring the instructions, even had I been able to read them at distance, were for those who might be uncomfortable simply walking about attending sound, I simply walked about attending sound, which made a most pleasant evening strolling.

Upon regathering on the logs Neil preached saxophone from a hidden green pulpit, skyrocket staccato tones shimmering in the canopy. An ensemble piece followed, searching out the ravine's expanse and texture. From the distance a wandering company's A Midsummer Night's Dream approached. "Lysander!" As we were done and heading home the wcAMND had taken station in the clearing by the creek to which we also had been drawn.

Another bit of Seattle magic. Thank you!

Recorded

August 2, 2016

Waltz in F minor, Op. 70 #2 - Chopin - Peter Katin

An eager nosegay, blossoms crowding just so.

Sonata in A minor, Op. 105 - Schumann - Jean Mouillère, Jean Hubeau

The 2nd movement pas de deux, piano sound touching, supporting, spotting the en pointe violin sound only enough to give the impression of exquisite weightlessness.

August 3, 2016
4 Ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 - Brahms - Janet Baker, André Previn

In a choice between lyric line against/or immutable stasis, these choose the former.
In a choice between expression against/or reflection, these choose the former.
In a choice between comfort against/or fear and trembling, these choose the former.
In a choice between goal against/or presence, these choose the former.

In short, my preference is the Maureen Forrester John Newmark recording.

El Cavito - Grupo Bahianainho [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

The Latin Chaotic. The sound quality in this 1911 recording has severed some of the more obvious clues to the unanimity of their ensemble. It takes work to discover just how together they were.

Chain Gang Blues - Sam Moore [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

Lots of vibrato and slippery pitches, high on the neck.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

August 1, 2016
Banned Rehearsal 915 160801 - Jenny Chung, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
We gathered on the porch, though it wasn't hot, to mix our sounds with those of the taco truck around the corner being subjected to attempted engine repair.

August 6, 2016
Second Thoughts Omnibus 160806 - Keith Eisenbrey
A year and several months ago I ended my self-imposed (and only partly observed) sabbatical from composition. I have gotten to a point in the project where I have sounds to share. This midi-generated sound file is all the parts packed in their box, shrink wrapped, ready to be torn open and re-assembled. The score in this form is for 12 pianos.

Blood and Fire, Hallelujah 160806 - Keith Eisenbrey
And last night I had the idea to take the midi file of Second Thoughts, slow it down (from quarter = 120 to quarter = 32) and use the result as the solo piano part of my 2010 virtual piano concerto Blood and Fire, Hallelujah

Playlist

Live

 

March 1, 2014

Deeply Lodged: Three World Premieres by Seattle Composer Tom Baker

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

 

Songs of Sleep and Dreams - Cherie Hughes, soprano; Brian Chin, trumpet; Ben Thomas, percussion

 

The gravity of the ensemble centers on the trumpet, with commenting accompaniment by song and percussion. That said, the center shifts easily, weightlessly, with exquisite care.

 

Invisible Cities (String Quartet No. 1) - Corigliano Quartet: Michael Lim & Elisa Barston, violins; Melia Watras, viola; Eric Gaenslen, cello

 

skittering smattering seeps chill, damp

lurks like crystal fungus shimmer

glimmer :: substance instance essence insistence endurance evanescence

 

Deeply Lodged - Cristina Valdés, piano; Jesse Canterbury, clarinet; Paul Taub, flute

 

Piano solo, winds on the far sides, silent until long forgotten. But there they have been, abiding long within resonance's decay, not prolonging the sound, but indexing the extent of its vanishing, caught on the sides of our precipice, centuries after disaster.

 

March 6, 2014

Empty Words / Song Books / Fontana Radif / Complete Human

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Compositions by John Cage and Jessika Kenney, performed by Jessika Kenney, voice and electronics; Neal Kosály-Meyer, voice; Jake Thompson, electronics.

 

By Part 4 of Empty Words we are reduced to phonemes, and our attention is centered on the mouth, its shapes and actions. The more typically complete linguistic mode of the Song Books, and of Kenney's original works, bears a similar relation to this attentional mode as does her final circumambulation of the space to the studied stillness pervading the remainder - and likewise, it in no way negates, and in no way is not permeated by, that stillness.

 

Cage: Language not elevated by song, but cast off, reduced, sliced away, partitioned.

 

The Whole:

Not proceeding at a glacial pace.

Not proceeding at all.

Rather, occurring.

 

The electronic manipulation minutely affixes our distance from the person sitting on the stage in front of us, as though voice were puppet, and apparatus a magic stage with a plastic relation to our skulls.

 

March 7, 2014

Seattle Composers Salon

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

 

Sonata - Aaron Keyt - Keith Eisenbrey, piano

 

A hard-edged, unapologetic, neo-classical foray, modeled from movement to movement with various schemes on Haydn's Sonata in E, Hob.XVI:31. The most interesting aspect that shines through as a property of both is the peculiarity with which one phrase moves to the next - never exactly graceful or lyrical: more spidery, subtle, insurrectionary.

 

Northern Lights, and Three Stories - Clement Reid

 

Something about the pianistic writing reminded me of Greg Short - always solidly traditional in voice, but never shy about robust dissonance when called for. These pieces, like Greg at his best, were colorful neo-Romantic tone-poems, and probably, like Greg at his usual, wickedly difficult. I'm rather pleased to see that this thread of Seattle tradition is alive and well.

 

Left Hand Piano Piece and Did Everybody Get a Balloon? - Jay Hamilton

 

Leave it to Jay to blast pretense out of the room. Deeply cleansing after a long week. Thank you!

 

Recorded

 

March 1, 2014

Symphony in B-flat, D. 485 - Schubert - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Karl Böhm

 

Phrases begin multiply and end multiply, like books stacked in precise abandon. Underneath it all an unnamable coiled energy lurks, seething out just seldom enough to convince us it might not be there.

 

Sonata in A-flat, Op. 110 - Beethoven - Vladimir Feltsman

 

The patterns of shifting figurations, the moment to moment variation, the way scenes shift as though the ground is giving way, all conspire to articulate, in excruciating detail, a fractured underlying continuity. The surreal begins here.

 

Polonaise in B-flat minor - Chopin - Peter Katin

 

I probably shouldn't have tried to listen to anything immediately after late Beethoven, though this is lovely. Many years ago I was active in a music forum on CompuServe, as was the superb English pianist Peter Katin. At a time of temporary economic tightness on my end Maestro Katin was kind enough to give me a copy of his newly recorded CD of the complete Waltzes and Polonaises, for which I am ever so grateful.

 

March 3, 2014

Papillons, op. 2 - Schumann - Wilhelm Kempff

 

I once referred to Schumann's "dance-addled whimsy", of which I suppose this is the poster child. A set of variations on the theme of metrical fluidity.

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

March 3, 2014

Figure Study 9 - Keith Eisenbrey

Gradus 240 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

 

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