Preface
"Footnotes, citations, canons, paradigm assignment, and other such devices do not belong to the intellectual process in its intellectual significance. They do, of course, function powerfully as the social artillery of institutional-political hardball. To lose this distinction is to imperil your rationality."
- Benjamin Boretz "zero theory anthem" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streamed
Wayward in Limbo
"With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series now moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is curating and commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of exclusive material. Many of these will be essentially 'live' performances recorded at home for this occasion. Others may create a mix of pre-recorded material that has not been previously released elsewhere."
- from the Wayward Music Series website at https://www.waywardmusic.org/.
August 1, 2020
Yann Novak - Mountain, Fire, Holding Still
[] drown out birds and songs
[] make them part of ours
[] with our motors
[] are the loudest among equals
[] interrupt this broadcast
[] cannot touch our dial
[] cannot slow us down
[] bliss us out
(birds flown)
none but drones
gently pulsing
(and bird cries)
[] feel better now
August 2, 2020
Norm Chambers - Music for Neuropathy
procedure:
a pulsed series of sufficient apparent constancy
so as to establish an image
of an unchanging-enough frame
add others
don't disturb the frame
allow no pattern of disturbance to emerge
from within the atomic pulsed series
such as might
override the frame
this frame can:
pan
refill
substitute contents with others
but not:
in a way that might override
no insurrection allowed, systematically
until all is washed away wading in the water though concern remains for return here the image of pop pop pops like fireworks or gunfire at distances (uncertain what) back to water wading and there we are
back in four
August 5, 2020
Carlos Snaider
speaking to themself
not here to knock anybody out
or enrapture
or turn or convince
hangin'
fingers thinking
meter and figuration invent each other
singing slides in easy
[now I want an Udu]
Recorded
August 2, 2020
Tannhäuser, Act III - Richard Wagner - Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Josef Greindl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Eberhard, Waechter, Gerhard Stolze, Franz Crass, Georg Paskuda, Gerd Nienstedt, Anja Silja, Grace Bumbry, Else-Margrete Gardelli, Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele, Wilhelm Pitz
The prelude is a sequence of shots
the camera is still
a fixed gaze.
It observes.
Haloed by strings
Wolfram speaks.
Who else left the theater-space during the interval?
We did! We pilgrimed too!
Appeal to a higher court.
(There's always a higher court.)
Who prays for the singer?
Elizabeth, taking the place of a Mary Mother of God, as interceder.
[NB: I have in the last decade or so thought of Tannhäuser as not quite being Wagner really being Wagner yet. But this third act has got it together.]
Orchestra provides the scenery that can even follow the story into the story being told by the character on stage that tells the story. The underworld has a pull on this. We are heavier here than there. The terror of the sensual woman.
No worries.
Triumphal Puritanical Patriarchy Wins Again!
Benediction de Dieu dans a solitude - Franz Liszt - Alfred Brendel
The long melody that makes itself as it goes, never forgetting, and the keyboard figuring, are both magical. We could dive right in.
What was really new about the piano as it developed as an instrument is that it can take the full strength of a grown human person, and amplify it. No need to hold back.
Classic - Modest Mussorgsky - Benjamin Luxon, David Willison
Wears its attitude on its face.
Fie on that!
Panis Angelicus - César Franck - Auburn Symphony Orchestra, Stewart Kershaw, Mark Calvert, David Di Fiore
This was recorded in our church's sanctuary, currently off-limits due to the pandemic. It is good to be back in that space. Music made by old friends with whom I have sung and conversed.
Symphony in D Major, op.73 (#2) - Johannes Brahms - Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink
[an orchestra named for a building, common but strange]
We want to believe this.
(recruitment video (free with 7 boxtops))
the fugue is the bit where he makes you think he's going to lose track, but never completely escape.
beetle-like thing within beetle-like thing
{yes dear, my beloved cumquat, like an onion}
being scolded
scolded cabbage
we walk the village street
hear the news
conductors: they who play a synthesizer made of people
You're right, we lost it. Keep looking, ages long.
Seed of Sibelius
they occupy the hall
they took over
they are the oracle of the hall of the city
next generation country road
mornin' Missuz Webster, Frau Arachne
Yes! I've found it!
(He gets very excited about it too).
Don't worry, I know exactly where it is.
Well, yes, there's this dragon, but we've got this.
[*magic chromatic incantation*]
Hear it? It's very close.
tonality porn
naked Handel
[If this was Brahms's true wish
on how to promote himself in public
it is sincerely kinky.]
Overture 1812 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink
we are now transported back
change of scene
play by play music
film think
back here where even here we were disturbed by the usurper
the pretender
we will take part in his defeat
even our peasants
see how happy!
Yup, thar she blows!
[It's in E for Empire]
Variations on a Theme by Mlle. Egoroff - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti
when you wish upon a girl
much like CPE Bach, he brings you up close
Chopinesque whimsy playing on a Lisztian tune that unspools itself by following where it is going to be
[op. posth. (def): he wrote this very early in his career, after he died]
Mirada (Orchestral Suite) - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Bochum Symphony, Othmar Maga
cartoon feature music
propaganda
repeats taken as necessary
we've got a stage to fill
love a man in uniform
oh let's march
the handsome young officer and his darling wife
pious national
Sousa for Czarists
The Bride-Elect - John Philip Sousa - Philip Jones Ensemble, Elgar Howarth
so yankee doodle
so concerted
without irony
all in
a comic short
August 3, 2020
Symphony in C-sharp minor (#5) - Gustav Mahler - Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Rafael Kubelik
earnest or protesting enough to convince himself crammed with event (all previous footage) every place is another view on heavy business no real escape we'll go have a nice visit to the country modulation mad the end must be approached from all sides at once if possible.
August 4, 2020
4 German Songs - Charles Tomlinson Griffes - Sherill Milnes, Jon Spong
my intense voice is intenser than your intense voice
hush
we are being vewy German here
Jeux - Claude Debussy - Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, James Conlon
persistently backgrounds itself
drifts you into dreamy land
if allowed
Le Tombeau de Couperin - Maurice Ravel - Vlado Perlemuter
music arises with a figuration texture
perturbations upon a membrane, meniscal
everything this music wears is off the rack
but makes it sound pretty good
we ornament by default here
August 5, 2020
Society Blues - Kid Ory [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
these notes are played by people in space
clear the floor
these pitch intervals dance
within attitudinal geometries
everybody here has a face
Arcana - Edgard Varèse - New York Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez
no room for play here
you are caged
bound in iron
as is every body else
what new torture waits?
2 Ricercare for voice and piano - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Lucy Shelton, Reinbert De Leeuw
indictments all around
(they're on the house)
bosses are robbers everywhere
a clean world
August 6, 2020
Preludium for Jazz Band - Igor Stravinsky - Columbia Jazz Band, Igor Stravinsky
not appropriation: genuine puzzlement
the musical equivalent of "Say, what?"
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano - Leonard Bernstein - Sean Osborn, Blair McMillen
The key center tends to push upward
or be pushed
as though being pinched somewhere uncomfortable
sneak up on it to end it
Sean nails it. The pianist is no slouch either. I'm not convinced by the reverb.
August 7, 2020
Symphony in E-flat minor, op. 111 (#6) - Sergei Prokofiev
this seems to be a domestic matter, discussed indoors
sleepy town disturbed
keep it down
who's watching
checking doors
nothing going on here
nabbed!
that sinking feeling
we speak low
under our covers
remember that time in the Spring
memory will fail
but paint it better
nothing moves here
(too drear my dear)
serves them right
grumble grumble
humpf
the big tune is sadly deflated
{obligatory sleigh ride scene}
don't show too much fun
but have some
just not
too much
oh not good
keep it
down
streets
have
ears
Postscripts
turned the bed raskolnikov the by the
alibi and the crab pot and the wakonda
28 house clash companies shout has
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