Preface
"Or, is it possible that music is not like verbal language, but that - like verbal language - it is an input/output behavior acquired transactionally, mimetically, not through other language systems - that is, not theoretically: which is to say, could it be a functionally discrete psycho-ontological space - in that sense a language, rather than a subspecies of some other, or some super-language - an expressing/thinking/behaving mode not learned through the agency of (the content or the sense of) a prior psycho-ontological space, of a prior, supervening other language - like say, verbal language? Could music, in such a possible worldview, be, in formal terms, an experiential 'primitive' rather than a derivative or a construct of the senses of previously ontologized sense-bearing experiential subsystems?"
- Benjamin Boretz "Music, as a Music" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streaming
January 17, 2021
Amy Denio & Annie O'Reilly
dance party with Amy and Annie
yes
Karen and I did get up and
dance a little
here in the library
where we were listening
slide show
back forth
two camera
production
mebbe
3
ping pong
prodigal light
quick change from goofin' to total in
a state entered by many doors
dulcet tones and all that
pokahometer
New Orleans Blues
back and forth
soul come home
2 metal plates
and 15 metal screws
I don't believe I had heard Annie O'Reilly before. I am grateful for such a wonderful introduction.
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/.
January 16, 2021
Be the First to Like B-83
Reflections on Berkeley in a Time of Plague
composers compose sounds
paths through
or potentials for paths
through
pitch-
timbre-
reverb-
space
where it
transpires
right there in our heads
sounds fade
while sounds near
moving our listening head
newhere
war intrudes
drumming remains
writhed awhile
b b b black with death
post-beat
reportage
January 17, 2021
A.F. Jones
Camera Lucida
the hum agent binds and clears
listens
we hear sounds of things being done
in rooms
and not in
rooms
we hear broadcast sounds
the hum agent isn't static
in the
stays the same
sense
its sound morphs
or is shorn
or is briefly joined
but in the
never moving sense
it does seem to feed
it just swallowed that song
engulfed
pats its belly
the door shuts
January 21, 2021
Kyle Hanson
breathless breaths
quickstep
inout
cycle
in groups that regroup
and launch
legato through a picket fence
persistence of audiation
time's
track
lost in its tracks
Recorded
January 16, 2021
Elijah, Part 2 - Felix Mendelssohn - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Robert Shaw, Thomas Hampson, Barbara Bonney, Henriette Schellenberg, Florence Quivar, Marietta Simpson, Jerry Hadley, Richard Clement, Thomas Paul, Reid Barteleme
well formed and polite
Haydn would not be much alarmed
marmoreolized
stands heavy on massy pillars
not to scale and
bloated
choral shout infra-titles
in case we didn't hear properly
improper focus on the prophet hero
not on the prophecy
I get lost in these huge rooms
where it is within its cathedral
the Lord's Enunciation
Imperial Piety
drips with wealth
January 17, 2021
ponderous portent
nothing Haydenesque about it
he'd be
alarmed
this music says what the words do
no padding
large gestured
composed to fill the space
it just
is that big
wasn't inflated to get there
rhythm of syllables in statements
not that he hadn't listened to Haydn
nor neglected to reference
Beethoven
string solo Sanctus
the material of the melodic portion
is severely drawn
no softened
edges
no tasteful grace
ferociously complex harmonic timbre mixes
in the Agnus Dei
giving Berlioz a run for his money
Boris Godunov, Act III Scene I (1872 version) - Modeste Mussorgsky - Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow, Martti Talvela, Leonard Mroz, Nicolai Gedda, Bozena Kinasz, Andrzej Hiolski, Aage Haugland, Halina Lukomska, Polish Radio Chorus of Krakow, Boys Chorus from the Krakow Philharmonic Chorus
the fairy princess and familiars
nope more queen than princess
if this scene was added
as a revision in 1872
was it because
the opera as a sound needed more high voices
rather than
because the plot needed them as characters
a force to reckon with
miles from the sound world of that preamble
before Act I
once again the menfolk bring trouble
January 18, 2021
Swan Lake Suite - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan
Greatest Hits
from this big ballet thing I wrote
human feeling is best expressed loudly
en masse
an oddity
it includes in the middle of it as a Suite
numbers that
are
I presume
ends of acts
designed to bring curtains down
and launch audiences into the intermission
how or why go on
in short it ain't nothin' like a Suite
as such might intentionally be
composed
it is an advertisement
January 19, 2021
Parsifal, Act I (Beyreuth 1966) - Richard Wagner - Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, Thomas Stewart, Kurt Bohme, Josef Greindl, Sandor Konya, Gustav Neidlinger, Astrid Varnay, Hermann Winkler, Ger Nienstedt, Ruth Hesse, Elisabeth Schartel, Dieter Slembeck, Erwin Wohlfahrt, Ruth Hesse, Anja Silja, Dorothea Siebert, Lily Sauter, Rita Bartos, Helga Dernesch, Sona Cervena, Wilhelm Pitz (chormeister)
ordered interval sets and their elaborations as they mix
the opera
begins in the middle of the Prelude
or
in the middle of the
Prelude
singing begins
darkness weighs upon everything
a writhing gooey mass
captured
enslaved by a fallen world
Parsifal wanders in and does what he is
he is accosted by a street gang
accusing him of a nonsense crime
made up on the spot
bully
tactics
hazing without consent
enter the holy of holies and call upon the dead
January 20, 2021
Slavonic Dance in E minor, Op. 72 #2 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi
marketing national identity for easy consumption
folk color in a cage
3 Intermezzi, Op. 117 - Johannes Brahms - Julius Katchen
deep registral focus
figure and voice leading
synthesized into a
texture-tonal-function-farben Melodien
the music you perceive is not the notes
arising within a web
of potentials
a snake pit of lyric lines
from my journal entry February 25, 1996: 1. Lullaby- with a chill wind - hint of hard edge 2. remembers Schumann 3. the chill wind blows gently inexorable b: remembers Schumann → almost flatfooted modulation back
Sonata in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 (#2) - Alexander Scriabin, Michael Ponti
melody is there
but can't be pointed at
it slips to the side
escapes verification
or definition
from my journal entry September 20, 2004: 1. a lingering, poetic reading 2. light, bubbling -, the big moments explode
In Session at the Tintinabulary
January 19 - 21, 2021
Adagio con espressione from Sonata in D Major, Op.31 #2 - Jan Ladislav Dussek - Keith Eisenbrey
In July of 2017 I started a sight-reading project as part of my morning practice. The intent is to read through a large sampling of keyboard works from the European-centered repertoire, starting with the English Virginal composers and working through composers chronologically by year of birth. Currently I'm working through the Sonatas of Jan Ladislav Dussek. When I came across this lovely movement recently I thought that I could work it up without undue fuss and make a video performance for eventual use as an offering for our on-line church service. I made the video on January 19, and then recorded it with better microphones on the 21st. I indulged in some elaborations during the repeats, figuring that it wouldn't be out of keeping with late 18th Century practice, and that Dussek was not in a position to complain.
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
I assured perfectly I remember
having a few like that out of doors I
hope not made yes what subject autographs
Reality Check::
the risen throne
the corridor
in tinted eyes
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