Saturday, May 7, 2016

Playlist

Preface

"A tone, once duplicated, becomes not only out of perceived pulse, but out of perceived time; or rather changes the linearity of temporal perception, particularly when moments of duplication, of time doubled back on itself, occur contemporaneously with moments occurring in, for lack of a better word, the normal flow." - Aaron Keyt, Considering "Group Variations II for Computer -  The Open Space Magazine, issue 19/20 - Fall 2015, Spring 2016

Texts

Live

May 6, 2016
Seattle Composers' Salon

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Jake Svendsen
Centipede, for solo alto sax, opens with a midrange leap that brought to my ear, unbidden and immediate, the ambitus of the opening sax sweep in Sarah Vaughan's brilliant recording of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes on No Count Sarah. But it was as though we had appeared there in the middle of a series of brilliant pitch parkour, feline, lifting into higher planes by simple shift of weight, the glory of Basie's orchestra lighting our way as we ascend the partials on the merest quiver of tongue.

Sheila Bristow
Two Songs for mezzo soprano and piano, part of a set in progress on a dance theme. Songs of dance, if you will. The first opened with a series of dyadsingularities on piano marking the vertical pitch space, voice starting at the bottom, climbing  the ladder, or pulling the heights down to the personal, until the dyads detach from themselves, one strand floating up high, another floating low, voice, weightless, between. The second song, on a poem by cummings, is more playful, with rhythms and melody drawing short straight lines, pretending they are planes, and boofing about giddily, like a draw as you go platformer.

Steve Escoffery
Transcendental Object - a lovely quadrophonically projected, computer generated piece. Just that afternoon, while reading an essay about Language ,as a music, I was musing about a possible language that could exist hidden within our spoken tongues, a language that could only be understood by its native speakers, but whose native speakers could use any natural language as its carrier wave. In other words, a native speaker of this hidden language could say anything in any language and, simultaneously, say anything at all in the hidden tongue. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found the Steve had managed to extract it whole and lay it out for us to hear.

Clement Reid
Theater Piece #1 for solo cello - at first blush it sounded like some virtual famous (insert trademark mark here) cello solo from a literally posthumous Shostakovich string quartet. But other than a passing resemblance to the oh so particular chromatic hue of late Shostakovich, I wasn't sure why I would think of that. As it progressed though, as it unfolded itself, all the while carefully refolding in upon itself, covering its tracks, laying it out there thick so as to obscure its swift deepening inward retreat, it became clear. It wasn't the hue of its pitch space, it was the sting of its irony.

Recorded

May 3, 2016
Es erhub sich ein Streit BWV 19 -J. S. Bach - Gächinger Kantorei, Helmut Rilling

Whose is the voice of the chorus? The other's, the other's that is Immediate always, begun always, continued always, The other's that arises from within,  fountain of grace. Whose is the voice of the recitative? Ours, our contemplative voice. Whose is the voice of the solo? The ecstatic's, lifted and held aloft. Whose is the voice of the chorale? Ours, our common voice. Whose is the voice of the permeating chorale melody? The other's, the other's that has always appeared from within.

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