Preface
"A music is not a tree, or an earthquake, right, but it's also not a story, a fact, an opinion, a structure. Metaphorically, music is said to be, and can be, any of these things; but except in the most extravagantly abstract fantasies, such semiosis is never literal or exact or rigorous, but always looks across an unfathomable analogical gap. Cognition, nonverbally, does not entail recognition, or representation. Seemingly basic musical 'facts' such as repetition, chords, melodies, parametric geographies, etc., are really only verbal 'facts', primarily opaque to music, but radically reductive to it if they're ontologically transferred into music as representational 'musical facts'. But since intersubjectivity is supposed to be restricted to the symbolic-linquistic, and since cognitivity is supposed to depend on intersubjectivity, how is it possible to identify in interpersonal space a linquistic but nonverbal 'music reality'?"
- Benjamin Boretz "Music, as a Music" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streaming
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/.
February 6, 2021
Harold Budd & Keith Lowe
[recorded at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on June 11, 2009]
a tree speaking by its roots
past sunfall
near moonfall
long
hours
landscape with fence and shore
degloaming lazily
allowing
soon
bright hills
still
far
monasterial
all the steps
are taken
spinning voidward
February 6, 2021
Sonata in D Major, Op. 40 #3 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley
differentiated tempo episodes
depends on
who is looking at the
time
we can be well behaved
but fun is harmless
Impromptu in E-flat Major, Op. 90 #2 - Franz Schubert - Murray Perahia
affect changes from within the figuration
the ground shifts under us
while we frolic
weather arrives
characterization by implied description
Scherzo in B minor, Op. 20 - Frédéric Chopin - Vladimir Ashkenazy
internal focus
we hear a self
reflecting thinking
thoroughly
multimovement work folded into a single thought
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 - Robert Schumann - Quatuor Via Nova, Jean Hubeau
balance is background as frame of thinking
what is out of balance with
itself
is to balance other phrases
pulling other ways
excitement and horror
for the thrill of it
3rd movement owns
so gentle
now for a game a tag
February 7, 2021
Boris Godunov, Act III Scene II (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
almost blockprint clarity of parts
an element of fear to begin
but rising to the emotional high point
big martial pageant
everybody loves a parade
nothing lasts
situation is unstable
Dmitri's heroic tune has a family resemblance to Walther's Meisterlied
tied in a knot
the eroticism
of patriotic
upwelling
feeling
Concerto in D minor - Max Bruch - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Nai-Yuan Hu
midway life's drama
wrote some tunes
sempre espressivo
these melodies don't talk to each other
they just spin on and on
all monologue
all the time
too much tutti
a tearjerker
jerk's tears
2nd movement
more intensity
as an opera scene
than the 1st
movement
orchestra's default is monolithic
it all speaks as one
a different part of the woods entirely
these two have a difficult relationship
but it makes sense as a
relationship
unlike anything in Act I
getting the old coven
back to gather again
her attempt at seduction is well planned
she impersonates his mother
and never stops talking at him
again icky
but completely believable
all I want is a kiss wink wink
fill a voice with anguish
fill a room with a voice
fill a room
with anguish
Slavonic Dance in F Major, Op. 72 #3 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra - Christoph von Dohnányi
a slavonic dance
being a dance
has a rigid format
so that
folks know
where to move
and when
we can decorate the wall
as we wish
but the walls remain
a
voluntary restraint
[NB this one is a stronger composition than the first two]
Fuge in E minor, Op. posth. - Alexander Scriabin - Michal Ponti
turns it into a Schumannesque essay on repeating transparent transformation
from my journal entry of May 21, 1995: clear and colorful. academic, yes, but almost nostalgically so.
Three Piano Dances from Good Times and Dances - Stephen Foster & Charles Ives [from The Great Sentimental Age - Gregg Smith Singers]
straight from that hotbed of intellectualism
the Harvard beerhall
late 19th Century
the keyboard style reminds me of simplified Brahms Hungarian Dances
or
Chico Marx
I presume these are all by Stephen Foster
Symphony No. 2, Op. 16 "The Four Temperaments" - Carl Nielsen - London Symphony Orchestra, Ole Schmidt
the meta affect of an older psychology
better sibling of
or cousin
of
The Planets
neo Baroque
trying to make itself small
such frustration
everybody is allowed to wear a corset
The 4 Impersonations of the Temperaments in Symphonic Sound tm
we
choose 4
because it might
could
balance
this may be an inaccurate characterization
February 8, 2021
6 Songs - Francisco Ernani Braga - Teresa Berganzo, Juan Antonio Alvarez Parejo
#1 features a low repeated tone drone in eighths
echoed by the single
pitch drone in the 2nd part of the vocal.
clarity - French influence?
well written but challenging for voice
supportive in both line and harmony
unpretentious but well made
popular in the operatic way of being popular
or even in the
cabaret way
Grizzly Bear - Jack Charman [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
nothing refined about it
this here's 'Merica!
dance crazed
[thanks, Irving Berlin,
I guess]
February 9, 2021
Le Tombeau de Couperin - Maurice Ravel (Fugue arranged by David Diamond) - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz
providing a serviceable orchestration of a non-threatening piece
a money
making venture?
interesting times to be composing such music
modernist:
impressionist
neo-classicist
symbolist
primitivist
expressionist
formalist
a sad feature of this lush instrumentation for keyboard pieces is a loss of
definition
something is obscured
diffused
like Scriabin, full invested in a heady brew
of expressionist
impressionist
formalist
(in the speculative formalist
sense)
intent on pursuing the new
God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares - Blind Joe Taggart [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
flipping his Rs
meter determination:
standard procedure:
first find one
already on the wrong track
Violin Concerto No. 1 - Bohuslav Martinů - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - Vaclav Neumann, Josef Suk
comes out fighting
temperature is high
we're being squeezed
into small spaces
in the last decades
before it became ridiculous
to compose such
things
as violin concertos
this should be the happy domestic movement
it's nervous
is this whole thing on the E string/?
loves motors
Chanson russe for Violin and Piano - Igor Stravinsky - Joseph Szigeti, Igor Stravinsky
means match ends
as cabaret ready
as Satie or Weill
Fanfare For The Common Man - Aaron Copland - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz
who are the drumwhaps for?
tries for that
also sprach Zarathustra vibe
Thermopolae - Stan Kenton [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
for the movies
the mean streets
noir
not for the dance floor
nightmare cabaret
Lawdy Miss Clawdy - Lloyd Price [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
music for a new mode of dissemination
radio first
jukebox
45
platter
Winter Music - John Cage - The Callithumpian Consort, Stephen Drury
for dismembered pianist and scattered gestures
Wedding Song - unknown composer - Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon
from a private tape. This is a setting of the same text different translation from Ruth that I set for David and Yvonne's wedding way back in the way back
February 10, 2021
Agnus Dei - Samuel Barber - Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Robert Shaw, Arietha Lockhart
the all-purpose adagio
ka ching
better settings
much better
of Agnus Dei exist
and inflating
the string quartet movement
does it no particular favors
but
ka ching
The Lord Is My Shepherd - Randall Thompson - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [April 14, 1972]
choral arrangements can be lucrative
relatively
for the publisher
anyway
since they sell so many copies per performing group
the trick is to make them anodyne and yet skillfully done
Games - Ann Peebles
everything fits
everything makes room
Pastorale: "The Color of Water" take 3 of October 12, 2010 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer
such a frail bark for so much words
may be the last time he finished a piece
that had written down
notes
a line of hills
slowly rehearsed
Yonder She Comes - Seeger Family [from American Folk Songs for Children]
greetings and small talk for light courting
Banned Rehearsal 286 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt
variations on a baby babbled theme
for piano and horn
at Toad Hall
else whence the piano
which we didn't have available
in the
room we used
at the Tintinabulary
then
so much empty space in the signal
I can hear Aaron's horn entrance
2 wraps of tape
before it arrives
such magnificent blats
as though we took cues
from the future
I don't remember how we set up the microphones at Toad Hall
I presume we
brought the PZMs but may be mistaken
Aaron might have had some
microphones
too long ago
no picture in head
Stillborn - The Keeners [a Rescued Record]
socially acceptable mode of social dis-acceptability trapped in song form
February 11, 2021
Piano Trio Movement - unknown composer - unknown performers possibly including Betty Eisenbrey [from a private recording]
I believe this is from a local adult chamber music camp my Mom would attend in the early 2000s
Violin Duo - Elaine Barkin (electronic realization by Loren Norell) [from Open Space 24]
centered much further east than the angels
much further even than our
east
an emptiness more empty than the emptied east
Banned Rehearsal 805 - Pete Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2012]
after announcements it accumulates slowly
radio ice breaker dragging
heavy chains
rough terrain
fights back
foregroundless
vanishes
Looking - Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space 44]
plain parts on severe paper
plain light
harsh
without echo
Nancie, Fvb 12 - Thomas Morley - Claudio Columbo [from Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]
a mere nothing
in all its glory
to show how 'tis done
Voltes - Michael Praetorius - New London Consort, Philip Pickett [from Dances from Terpsichore]
musicians who wrote music down
were trained to do so
for vocal
part writing
that being how and why
written down music
was
written down
they made instrument families
to imitate the voices
so they could
write written down music
for instruments
too
In Session at the Tintinabulary
February 8, 2021
Banned Telepath 70 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey
February 9, 2021
Banned Telepath 70 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt
Banned Rehearsal 1019 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt
The banned gathers for times to meet
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
of vapour the is serene to habitually
caused in soul by thee divine be a
spirit as well by reason of the
Reality Check::
drifting away on a seaweed covered surfboard
through his left hand as orange
the cat sleeping on my ankles
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