"Such a function [the modular-interval] is obviously independent of the particular sound chosen in a particular case to interpret it (i.e., of which particular interval happens to be taken as 'modular'). Equally obviously, however, the choice that is made will have a strongly determining influence on the range of possible interval-relation structures within any such case. And whether or not the interpretation as a modular interval of some other sound than our empirically validated 'octave' is in fact empirically feasible, is determinable only by experiential test, not by theoretical postulation."
Benjamin Boretz - from Meta-Variations: Studies in the Foundations of Musical Thought
Texts
Recorded
O Choruscans Stellarum - Hildegard Von Bingen - Sequentia [from Canticles of Ecstasy]
unaccompanied monophony
just the naked line
clearly the strongest presentation
Geistliche Chor-Music, Op. 11, SWV 369-397 (1648), Volume 1: XVII. Das Wort ward Fleisch - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
homophony
is vertically inflected monophony
polyphony
is
commentary
or
horizontally inflected monophony
all enabled
by an ingenious homogeneity
Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland, BuxWV 211 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
polyphonically supported monophony
Gottes Zeit Ist Die Allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106 - Johann Sebasian Bach - Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Ton Koopman
homophonically supported
monophonically supported monophony
or
homophonically supported
plural monophony
concerto
for two flutes chorus and continuo
solo voice episodes
inflected
by polyphonic episodes
opens the text
to
fill our persons withal
cute little echoed amen
Triosieme Ordre (ut): Seconde Courante - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
sequential episodes
provide a reset
and a respite
brings the
scattered lines together
for a graspable cooperation
Keyboard Sonata in C Major, Kk. 243 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
an amusement
Keyboard Sonata in E minor, Wq. 65/39 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
fleet little spider fingers
repetition
encapsulates
for
direct comparison
across moments
within
immediately
available memory
the closely held immediate past
Symphony in B-flat Major, Hob. I:51 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Austro-Hungarian Orchestra, Ádám Fischer
1
our hero
full of action and industry
but a tender heart
within
what's not to love?
minds the details
difficulties do deter not them
discreet with confidences
2
the love-interest hero
closely held
in the parental household
it won't be easy to pry them loose
3
the social occasion
a matrimonial show-room
fancy horn
playing back there
4
discoveries and negotiations
so many details
such a lot of
work to do
before the big day
Sonata in A Major, K. 331 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Alicia de Larrocha
articulated with weight difference
vocal thinking
the subtlest of
agogic hesitations ahead of downbeats
Symphony in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastoral" (#6) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter
he doesn't stray from F Major
for quite some time
but
at
what point
can it be said
to have been established?
reason
enough to take the damn repeat Bruno!
Karen says there was a hawk on our maple snag
had flown off
here's the big scary storm scene
it occurs to me
that one branch of my family tree
(the Aisenbrey
branch)
stems from podunk Germany
these simple country folk
are my progenitors
they were picturesque
Caprice in A Major, Op. 1 #21 - Niccolo Paganini - Salvatore Accardo
in a key
of particularly indexed intimacy
music
magnified
micro actions of the body
Symphony in C Major, D. 944 (#7(#9)) - Franz Schubert - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan
1
full throated imperial majesty
2
its officious workings
punctilious to the 32nd part
orchestrated in blocks
and blocks of parts of blocks
3
travels in the countrywide
imbued with vigor
4
all the cares of an Empire
dispatched
trombone acts as the Prime Minister
Etudes de concert d'après les Caprices de Paganini pour le pianoforte, Op. 10: III. Etude in G Minor, vivace - Robert Schumann - Éric Le Sage
the beats get shuffled
so pay attention
Andante con Molto - Fanny Hensel - Beatrice Rauchs
a cut across severity
at an angle
or a fracture
or fissure
Waltz in A Minor (1843) - Frédéric Chopin - Peter Katin
a whole lost society
glows with life in this music
its
sensibilities laid bare
Variationen über Eina Thema von Robert Schumann, Op. 20 - Clara Schumann - Susanne Grützmann
each variation
a recomposition of
(advanced hermeneutics)
never takes its eyes off the source melody
Via Crucis: Station V "Simon von Kyrene hilft Jesus das Kreuz tragen" - Franz Liszt - Reinbert de Leeuw
this music has wandered far
from anything like a home key
Etude en forme de variations, Op. 17 - Ferruccio Busoni - Wolf Harden
examined closely
the theme will reveal itself
it struggles
and must be restrained
it charms
it inveigles
it
dresses up in military finery
it pensivates
it does the puppy eyes
it comforts gently
it struggles more
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 - Johannes Brahms - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, Itzhak Perlman
1
in my habits of listening
a metrical framework
is
frequently laid
over the top of the music
(is this in two or in
three)
many composers
Brahms among them
seem to be fond
of so configuring the figurations
and gestural inflections
as to problematize
the firm locations
of downbeats
and
of internal subdivisions
struggling
against the tyranny of the bar
and all that
often regarded
as good compositional practice
evidence of sophistication
I'll cop to enjoying that game
as
much as the next listener
but
I wonder
if my ability
to keep track
of where the downbeat is
and
to
habitually transcribe
the ongoing experience
onto such a
traditionalist grid
is to my ear's benefit
as though it mattered
to a perceived moment
whether
it were a true
or a
false downbeat
what
after all
is more true
about a
downbeat
that matches the written meter
and one that
doesn't?
theorem:
rhythms aren't in meters
(as denizens)
the meter
is a theory
about the rhythms in play
id est
there is
no two
or three
for a music
to be in
it can't be in
what emerges from it
or can it?
2
an oboe melody
above a homophony
Bach cantata
territory
3
the metrical grid
is made relatively explicit
in the
opening statement
a drumming gesture
in the strings
the key
to the overlay
as helpful as any overlay might be
it still
intermediates
obscures
abstracts
reduces
wherein a meter
dreams of another key
within a dream
of
another tonality
Holidays Symphony - Charles Ives - New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein
a set of tone poems
on a theme
as a window
into a past
America
we discover
what once signified that
(America)
to our progenitors
the prevailing
educated
New England
culture
some of it
falls out
like a PDQ Bach misfire
America
is a marching band battle
in the streets
every
storefront
is its own team
Ives
was not among the more lucid
prose stylists
Jutish Medley - Percy Grainger - Percy Grainger, Lotta Mills Hough [from Percy Grainger plays Percy Grainger]
a mishmash extravaganza
played earnestly
Caprice - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Jenny Lin
attitude on the street
a black and white comic short
sad ending
I've had this recording
since before the brouhaha with Bo
these
folks
could still take it seriously
the rhythm section
is
counting measures like demons
the birth
of the
just-follow-the-instructions school of orchestration
or its epitome
I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues - Lee Wiley [from That Devilin' Tune]
sounds like the movies look
it's all in frame
Mathis der Maler (excerpts): Vorspiel - Paul Hindemith - Kölner Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester, Joseph Keilberth
good solid craftsmanship
just look at the stitching in that
counterpoint!
Trouble Trouble - Betty Roché [form Turn Me Loose White Man]
trouble every time I speak my mind
sad truth
Canteyodjaya - Olivier Messiaen - Martin Zehn
in harsh lighting
no reason for theory of the whole
pasted on
scraps
higgledypig
sharp quick cuts
absurdist rage
Tempus Fugit - Miles Davis [from Turn Me Loose White Man]
a show-off cut
String Quartet - Arthur Berger - Lenox String Quartet
chipmunk battles
in the low brush
stealthy waits the tiger
under the fragile cover of night
Pipeline - The Chantays [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
beach party cool
California vibe
boosting
Thelonious - Thelonious Monk [from Underground]
tapped out
in pitch inflected Morse code rhythm
Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding) - Elton John [from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road]
prog left a door open
and glitter got in
to spruce up its pretense
songs extended
to allow for solos
a social gesture
for
stadium sized shows
but not a need of the song
Symphony #9 - Roger Sessions - American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
concert music culture
clings most tightly
to its accustomed forms
to the largest budget
anything old or new
must be in the
form
of the old
the essence
of what is conserved
in a
conservatory
these instruments play weary tunes
cloistered toil
5000 notes
trapped in a symphony box
that might also have a
cat in it
serious compositions
need to be understood
by
board members
to be taken seriously
there are signs
in
board-member code
program notes
as they have come to be
are
for the benefit
of the budget
and its caretakers
my playlist
is designed to take me through time
in five year
increments
an interesting shift of perspective occurs
in the 60s
and 70s
as the music I'm hearing
becomes
that music
that is
and has been
contemporaneous
with my musical
awareness
Arc for String Quartet - Robert Morris - Jack String Quartet [from Robert Morris at 70]
I play a note
I play another
the first
was played from
nothing
unprecedented
the second
was played
from the
first
is the whole sense of interval
summed in that 'from'?
no
but
there is a connection
between 'from'
and
the location of interval in music
interval
is a class
of flavors
of 'from'
the glue
of seriality
or
the forces
unleashed
between
pitches
Liebeslied - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, May 14, 1993]
I'm coming back to this tempo-feel recently
hadn't quite got my hands
into those chords yet
nor my weight to flow through my shoulders
note
no reason to hurry into the repeat
I was being quite
free with the tempo
not ineffectively at all
Smoking - Goodness [from 1995 - 1998]
the come-on of coolness
inhabiting the in-crowd vibes
a report
from within the enchantment
Banned Rehearsal 646 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 7, 2003]
the idea was
that for a group of sessions
everybody would choose
an instrument
and we'd stick with it
I probably lost interest
first
this instance
has us plucking things
kora
electric guitar
washtub bass
we are become
a strummy
sort of hum
boundary
between
what something is sounding like
and
what something is going like
they are different
somethings
categorically
sounding
is primordially
pre-intervallic
going
is the essence
of the interval
the motion
the difference
3 Translations of The Works of Maurizio Morchetti: 1. Arrow - Alvin Lucier
difference over time
pitch dismatching
it wears its severity
honorably
and integrally
an aid
to the liberated
understanding
of intonation
live at the Chapel!
how exciting!
we sound great
a personal
tour
of what we do
this session
concerns itself
with
the bangclank equipment
a song is sung
by a brass instrument
of unknown shape
one of Aaron's no doubt
we transform the
chapel
into a large wooden shelled rattle
that time we brought the
chimney
low brass
and xylophone bars
strewn across the floor
a magnificent closet you've got there Fibber
shall we peek inside?
some artifacts of the file copying process in this dub
a pity
but
not too bad
Watercolors - Craig Pepples - Julia Hsu [from Open Space 47]
1 Caddisfly
acupuncture with oomph behind it
2 Smoke
there cannot be a generic interval here
Improvisation - Tom Baker, Keith Eisenbrey [from Subvector Colloquy, recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, March 2, 2023]
this is quite sweet
my accompanist nature enabled
Sinfonia in E-flat Major, Op. 9 #2 - Johann Christian Bach - Camerata Budapest, Hanspeter Gmür
1
differentiated iterations
a multi-faceted partitioning
to
set the music spinning
2
the establishing span
establishes the base line
key
meter
and time-span duration
3
the social graces
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 44 #1 - Felix Mendelssohn - Emerson String Quartet
impatient with the whole establishing business
eager to get ahead of the
game
but still playing by the rules
the Romantic impulse:
to recreate the universe
from mankind
outward
Slavonic Dance in D Major, Op. 46a #6 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi
how might one mime a music?
or music a mime?
a dance
is a
society
mimed
in a music
(miming the motions
of bodies
in music)
music
has
no terms
for it
to be
in terms
of
Jägerlied - Hugo Wolf - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Daniel Barenboim
and what is music to do
with a poem
of all things?
Madama Butterfly, Act III - Giacomo Puccini - Coro e orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Alberto Erede, Renata Tebladi, Giuseppe Campora, Nell Rankin, Giovanni Inghilleri, Piero de Palma, Fernando Corena, Gianna Diozzi, Melchiorre Luise, Michele Calvino, Luigi Pizzeri
an attempt to domesticate Wagner
for Italian taste
off-stage
sailor chorus?
they must have spent their off hours
studying
harmony
they cadence right proper
a strange mix
symphonic
techniques ala Wagner
but a close first-person sensibility
to the
music
can't give up the set pieces
the singers must have their
songs
why would any singer
want to play Pinkerton?
Hi there
I play
the cowardly cad
a system
based on cycles of integers
is subject
to all the
difficulties
of numbers
and their theories
susceptible
to speculative tweaks to the universe
Mi Vina de Chapanay - Carlos Guastavino - Teresa Berganzo, Juan Antonio Alvarez Parejo
the keyboard writing is pretty interesting
especially for the type of
song it is
Jazz Deluxe - Earl Fuller [from That Devilin' Tune]
sidestep from sophistication
sophistication
at the service
of anything but
Les Noces - Igor Stravinsky - Orquesta del Teatro Nacional de la Opera de Paris, Pierre Boulez, Jacqueline Brumaire, Denis Scharley, Jacques Pottier, Jose van Dam
jumps right in at weird
with unavertible gaze
we don't change to
these tempos
we just tune in
to where they have always been
on coordinated
but discrete channels
he even found the old
Mussorgsky channel
still there after all these years
relentless
In Session at The Tintinabulary
September 29, 2024
Dunfield - Keith Eisenbrey
and this is the last of the Long Meter tunes
September 30, 2024
I:
back to the old counting
groups of figurations
explore
the registers
music
is an action of thought
in the wild
the adventures
of any a group of figurations
on their
explore
could partition
a span of experience
into the shape
of a piece of music
does the announced fact
that they all share a common matrix of pitches
somehow
bind them
into an event
or is that
overkill?
pitch
as such
is not an earmind state
but
every pitch
is
II:
all that
and one more
(find the new pitch in the pizza)
a voice descends in good time
shares fare thee wells
with ma
and pa
October 3, 2024
Liebeslied - Benjamin Boretz
It was Ben's 90th birthday, so I recorded this 1974 "unfinished" work, the original pencil score of which resides in the pine box under my piano
October 4, 2024
Fifth Sonata - Lockrem Johnson
close, so close
Postscripts
Drops
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
