Preface
"Another way of saying this - from the perspective of a reader or listener - is that everything you read about or hear in music is an output of a particular life history at a particular moment, and its truth or expressivity is the truth and true expressivity of that, and, really, only that, moment - as is this. What you get, if you care to, is access to that moment, as you compose it for yourself, out of your own moment."
- Benjamin Boretz "Prologue to 'Little Reviews' (Life in the Slow Lane)" 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/.
March 6, 2021
Dennis Rae, Wally Shoup, John Seman, Mark Ostrowski
(recorded in 2017)
share the groove
share the spotlight
share internal collective
moving ears to the collective moving
making aware
being
and the image
of aware
being
a sense of ensemble
playing
texture forming
momentum spinning
at first
in
a familiar family of groove
pushing out further
continually
honing
pushing
to new groove
a long modulation from one to another
Recorded
March 6, 2021
Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 10 #4 - Frédéric Chopin - Alfred Cortot [1942]
fleet and faery light
Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 63 - Robert Schumann - Quatuor Via Nova, Jean Hubeau
1
modes of making a whole
everybody plays the whole
each
plays a part of the whole
partitioning it among themselves
each
plays parts of several wholes
which together
conjure another a
whole
each a mode of rhetoric
a rhetoric of wholeness
construction
2
starts the same way
several times
finds routes back
to start there
again
we could do this all day
trio
the middle part of this formal type
oops back to the top
again
3
long melody in search of cadence
unwilling to commit to it
to not be searching
4
our phrases balance
then they don't at all
but always
answering each other
through the offset phrases
stacked atop
each
other
[from my journal entry of April 4, 2004: full rich sound throughout - the concept of chamber music at work here is maximal: as much sound and thought as can be inserted at all times counterpoint almost too full, too packed, to be made clear. truly remarkable.]
severely plain to see
as though nothing could be happening inside
such open books
miming each statement from the characters' points
of view
the mimes
the inner thoughts
all hope degenerates
as it descends the modes
the orchestra forms heavy walls
around the voices
Les Jeux d'eau a la villa d'Este - Franz Liszt - Mikhal Rudy
proto impressionist
nor is it a distant leap to Scriabin
March 7, 2021
Migration Dances - Jessi Harvey - Onomatopoeia Trio (Cassie Lear, flutes; Soren Hamm saxophones; and Rebecca Olason, French horn) onamatopoeiatrio.com
moving
in bursts and blats and warbles
being a burst or blat or
warble
as a state of being
burst being
blat being
warble being
saxophone horn clarinet? flute (I think)
a nicely unpretentious ad hoc
ness to the mix
a common 18th Century opening gambit
was to outline the tonic triad
or do a quick I V I check in
or present a portion of the home
key's scale
this is similar
but the root of music is also a
duration
and a sense of lingering
the prelude establishes
what stands for the key
the reference tonality
Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra, in A minor, Op. 102 - Johannes Brahms - Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Bernard Haitink, Henryk Szeryng, Janos Starker
1
cello introduced
violin introduced
their conjointure
introduced
rarely completes a phrase in the same hat
rarely is an
answer not coopted
figurational non- or half-sequiturs
(also an
18th Century practice (see Scarlatti and CPEB))
parts of these items
will be completed later
2
the instant transformation of the horn calls
to violin/cello
tune
is breathtaking
3
goes into country ethnic dance mode
passages of plain as rocks
figuration
perhaps the key to what's ticking down in there
sacred homophony
profane declamation
martial fierceness
with
a gentle side
a character portrait in multiple modes
[from my journal entry of June 8, 1995: insistently 'small'-motivic - repetitive. exceedingly clearly drawn textures.]
L'Apprenti Sorcer - Paul Dukas - New York Philharmonic, Guido Cantelli
recorded live with vinyl artifacts and hum
lost somewhere is the fact
that
if the sorcerer could mop the floor with magic
why did he
force a drudge to do it
the hard way
On Emancipation Day - Len Spencer [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
carnival
crossing caste boundaries
transgression as emancipation
but also
viewing that other caste's culture
as a
spectacle
Sonata, Op. 1 - Alban Berg - Alfred Brendel
the contrapuntalist club drinking song
had he heard Scriabin?
the tonalities in the early part of the 20th Century
began to float
around in a half world
Sonata in G, Op. 62 (#6) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogdon
the key is an emptiness at the center
a related structural idea
melody is a charisma at the center
Some Jazz Blues - Memphis ** Band [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
played fast
to sound like a windup machine
keeps at it for awhile
too
[NB: oops! listening to the wrong track]
clown act for Max Fleischer treatment
March 9, 2021
Variations and Fugue on Chopin's Prelude in C minor - Ferruccio Busoni - Wolf Harden
start by pressing it into a new clay
what playful sprites emerge
press them in
also
get vigorous
get lovely
into
the clay
quaff it
smoke it
wallow in it
into the clay
heroify it
romance it
spin it
into the clay
prank it
toss it
bat it
diaphanize it
into the
clay
prowl it
confuse it
pound it
into the clay
dream it
remember it
hide it among its fellows
in the
clay
bury it in counterpoints
Let's Misbehave (take 1)- Cole Porter - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [October 1998]
we're not above birds
The Laffing Rag - Ben Curry [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
lizzy dizzy
running through a continuum of vowels
in the ha ha ho
ho department
a series of incomprehensible one-liners
Romeo and Juliet, Suite 2 - Serge Prokofiev - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz
traces connections
top to bottom of register
weighted to fall
large interval leaps
an image in much of the material
effort
of distance
or distance measured by effort
so what is left of Shakespeare in this endeavor
the dance kept the names
of the characters in the program
the plot's outline
the ballet
music as a whole did what it could
to evoke the spirit of the characters
as an adjunct to the dancers' movements and acting
within that
outline
bereft of the stage dance
and the plot
all we have is an evocation
far removed from the language
an advertisement
the tunes all sport apparent metrical elisions
as a proper part
the parts jumbled on the floor
March 11, 2021
Fanfare for the Common Man - Aaron Copland - London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
LSO plays it mostly un-tongued, legato, really whangs on those drums
Slow Drivin' (Parts 1 and 2) - Mutt Carey [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
I think I've just been sassed
inventing a wavelength to all be on
agreement as to factors
pulse
chord changes
swing
sass
poly-uni-voiced
Suite for Wind Quintet - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Ensemble Aventure
1
bassoon bit lights fires all over
oboe tries it
we drop
from end of 1 into
2
1 in later life
3
starts at the end of 1's beginning
multiple ways
for multiple times
to transpire
within each other
Little Darlin' - The Diamonds [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
fun with sliders in the mixing booth
and with cowbell
In Session at the Tintinabulary
March 7, 2021
Banned Telepath 72 South Seattle - Steve Kennedy
March 8, 2021
Banned Telepath 72 Ducks - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Banned Telepath 72 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
March 10, 2021
Banned Telepath 72 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt
Banned Rehearsal 1021 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Steve sent sounds from Outpost South Seattle, Anna and Neal took a walk and found some ducks, Karen and Keith improvised at the Tintinabulary while pulling in Anna and Neal by telephone from Outpost Lake City, and Aaron sent sounds from Outpost Toad Hall. It is magnificent.
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
es die hat's feld untergeht sucht lieb ihr
lieb lay zu bach am rheine wohnt' eine
zauberin o brechet mir den stab ich
Reality Check::
hung there from another mind
dyes gray violet
blows on the bass drum
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