Preface
"Freddy Malins, who had listened with his head perched sideways to hear her better, was still applauding when everyone else had ceased and talking animatedly to his mother who nodded her head gravely and slowly in acquiescence. At last, when he could clap no more, he stood up suddenly and hurried across the room to Aunt Julia whose hand he seized and held in both his hands, shaking it when words failed him or the catch in his voice proved too much for him.
--I was just telling my mother, he said, I never heard you sing so well, never. No, I never heard your voice so good as it is to-night. Now! Would you believe that now? That's the truth. Upon my word and honour that's the truth. I never heard your voice sound so fresh and so . . . so clear and fresh, never."
- James Joyce "The Dead" from "Dubliners"
Texts
Streaming
November 8, 2020
Robin Holcomb & Wayne Horvitz: Solos and Duets
If Seattle has a class act this is it. Robin wears her aging voice with more than grace, its faults and catches are made into new marvels of expression. There is no doubt here. This is the real thing.
Recorded
November 7, 2020
Moonglow - Art Tatum [from Classic Early Solos]
stage wide shenanigans with a whole troupe of dancers
in the midst of which
as though it could always be so easy
a song is embedded
entire
Horn Concerto in E-flat (#2) - Richard Strauss - Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, Peter Damm
German culture in the pleasant timeline
a fantasy made as a delusionary tactic
the feel good drug
this is recorded as though we are in all the really good seats
always exactly distanced for enhanced clarity
you are in the orchestra
all moments are placed just so
to you
radio ready
radio: the new stage
tightened up orchestration
brightens the place right up
like a new coat of paint
the trumpet high trombones low duo in The Masqueraders is right out of Tchaikovsky's playbook
I think only Stravinsky could get away with such a strange path through his original
turning it into an entirely other something
what it might be if it was not a story
November 8, 2020
Duo for Oboe & Clarinet - Arthur Berger - Phyllis Lanini, Don Stewart
a game danced with hats and canes
wind players can look straight at you
they don't need to twist themselves into their instrument like a violinist would
the timbres of the two are distinct enough that there is little ambiguity as to which is playing which notes
Wake Up Little Susie - The Everly Brothers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
It could happen to you!
Has anyone in rock & roll since then ever mentioned their reputation as something they were concerned about?
Where did all the reputations go?
Long time passing.
Three Cool Cats - The Beatles [from The Beatles Anthology, Volume 1]
symmetry
3:3
everything fits together
24 Preludes, Preludes 9 through 16 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [from a recital on October 25, 2002]
aside from going too fast
and rushing the rhythm
I do get the idea of them right I think
young man feeling old song
with in the know name drops
("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Keith Eisenbrey [from a recital on October 10, 2000]
Within its voice, it accomplishes marvels of figurational modulation and variety.
So what do I mean by figuration?
:: the specifics of how the notes are patterned within and among the hands
alberti bass is a figure
boom chick bass is a figure
What's magic about the "Chopin" bit is that it is as though the one-handed-dyad pairings vanish like fog burning off and reappear without ever breaking stride.
I made a few clunkers but otherwise played it pretty well.
Poor Little Critter on the Road - the Knitters [from Poor Little Critter on the Road]
and other hangover favorites
Seeds - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [from a recital on March 17, 2007]
I wrote each of these to a person
I put them in letters and sent them out
intending I guess
for the recipients to make something of them
perhaps they did
I don't know
never heard
They look so abstract on the page but I find when these seeds hit the reality of actuation they reveal what they always were in my head - potentialities.
November 9, 2020
Better Days - Bruce Springsteen [from Lucky Town]
He jumps right into full power mode.
generic Bruce
I'm just not sure why he's shouting
imitating himself
doing his own song
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent - Sergei Glagolev - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent
that's a good idea
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso - Camille Saint-Saëns - Itzhak Perlman [from Masters of the Bow - Violin - Volume 1]
cult of the virtuoso
for display only
not to be sold
November 10, 2020
Gradus 111 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2007]
 |
| the trail ended |
Before moving from all A-naturals to the first new pitch class (it would be an E-natural) Neal made series of rungs with each single A. This was A3.
timeline thinking
where along the unspooling time band
does this impact occur
always now
then then
by the end of does
the d is gone
November 11, 2020
Downtime - Russell Craig Richardson, Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space DVD 1]
map of an interior world
in
out
and through space
past
passed
a loving portrait of an instrument I knew pretty well at one time
lived across a wall from it
the One piano
constructed from who knows what lying about
a collection of screeches and rattles and thumps and blats and shakes
raucous glory
no wonder he fit in so well with us right away
trading floor on the noise exchange
a seminar by an all on its own solo improvisor
November 12, 2020
Fantasia, Fvb 8 - William Byrd - Christopher Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
reading anachronistically
:: music constructed as a series of fugato openings spilling over each other and their repercussions and refractions
good luck keeping up
though it sounds like it ought to be easy squeezy
Pavane deSpaigne, Spagnoletta - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Picket [from Dances from Terpsichore]
shifts within the motion types make 3D meter
show of grace in bearing
no stomping in this one
Suite in A Major, BuxWV 243 - Dietrich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
the exact science of how much is needed to shape a thought in all its bodily presence
Fugue in A minor, BVW 543- Johann Sebastian Bach - Albert Schweitzer
That keyboard figure
in which one note alternates
with the notes
of an embedded moving part
here they come loose from each other
in the acoustic space
scansion problematic
but we cling
lest we drown
Postscripts
must be industry sinks the rapidly
to impose him sink state that it has no
longer under between the advance of
nascent arid tactics
everything cold
is colder
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