Playlist

Preface

Paradise, April 2021

What sensible interest would I have in creating music if I didn’t know that other people would be engaged by it and want to hear it? (Of course, I can’t really know it – do you?) Pure self-indulgence won’t handle it because that’s just a dismissive putdown, and what isn’t? I don’t actually ever need to ask myself this question, because I am constantly drawn to create music without telling myself why; and I don’t have fantasy images of potential gratifying social events that might pull me on. There doesn’t seem to be any necessity for creating music except that it feels necessary and engages me deeply once I get into it. So if I have to think about needing a sensible interest in doing it I think: it’s fundamentally the same interest as I have when I listen to music, or read a book, or think hard and long about something: it gets me in deep and takes me somewhere that, to whatever extremity, becomes a permanent transformation – or as Gilbert Rouget puts it, a transformation of consciousness. Of course the nature of where it gets me, or how my consciousness is transformed, is not externally demonstrable, but you know it without any need for reinforcement of conviction when it happens to you. Sometimes the “social” occasion of a music doing is a solitary episode of self-discovery, seeing (metaphorically of course) what was there inside of you that you hadn’t perceived (for better or worse, unavoidably). My “ONE” solo piano sessions were self-consciously oriented that way, solitary occasions for a self-contained purpose; finding what music might lurk in you unsuspected probably threatens to also uncover aspects of your being that might lurk within that unpremeditated music. (All music is unpremeditated even if it’s premeditated.) There were 10 of those sessions, between 1985 and 1987.This one, which I’m indexing here as FIVETEXT, was the last one. Why do I think you might have a sensible interest in listening to it? Because I have no way of knowing that you wouldn’t, since I do."

- Benjamin Boretz "Text for FiveText" from the liner notes for an upcoming Open Space CD

Texts

Streaming

April 23, 2021

UW Modern Music Ensemble

Cristina Valdés, director

Core Interlude (2000) -  Orlando Jacinto García - Kevin Leiferman, Cello; Mia HyeYeon Kim, Piano; Jonathan Rodriguez, Percussion

Umbra (2019) - José-Luis Hurtado - Megan Hutchison, flute; Jonathan Rodriguez, percussion

The most delicate flower (2020) - Alexis Porfiriadis - Megan Hutchison, flute; Bridget Long, oboe; Constance Aguocha, voice; Dalma Ashby, violin; Eugene Chin, viola; Kevin Leiferman, cello; Mia HyeYeon Kim, piano; Sophie Schmidt, percussion

Rocío del Canto (2016) - Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon - Ian Huh, Piano 1; Mia HyeYeon Kim, Piano 2; Jonathan Rodriguez, Percussion 1; Yongyun Zhang, Percussion 2

1. Trope 1

2. Tarde

3. Trope 2

4. Cesa

5. Trope 3

6. Vacío

Treatise (Excerpts) (1967) - Cornelius Cardew - Megan Hutchison, flute; Bridget Long, oboe; Constance Aguocha, violin; Dalma Ashby, violin; Eugene Chin, viola; Kevin Leiferman, cello; Mia HyeYeon Kim, piano; Sophie Schmidt, percussion

First:
Cristina is a fabulous conductor
exactly precise enough so that the ensembles sing the music with her
collaborational rather than authoritarian
brilliant
I love how she trusts her musicians
collaborative puppetry
true collaboration 

the spatial reality
of the distance between
measured on screen
in inches
or
from the distance as ratio

if
a composition
is not a possibility
then
it is nothing 

a conductor conducts
both orchestra and audience 

the vid projection of the putative score
is more theater

What a lovely show, well played and well done by all involved!

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/.

April 17, 2021

Afrodite Psarra

Radiotactility

in the writing that accompanies the link
Afrodite lifts a speculative metaphor
for composition with electronic signals
as
a form of textile art
I'm always up for new ways to consider what music might be
"hand embroidered digital synthesizers"
"textile radio antennas"
precisely tuned or out-tuned pitch inferences
or -ferences
in-
or inter- 

our old friends the blip bloops
in snazzy attire 

scant apparent concern
for how this might contribute
to concert music prestige culture
a benefit of electronica
that may
perhaps should
have been
foreseen
if it had been conceivable at all 

textile art
inherently polylinear
weaves
knits
knots
molecular bonds
electromagnetic
cellular generated organic

April 18, 2021

Steve Layton, with Dorota Czerner, voice

March Winds

parse sempiternal rational grasp
over the waters
upon the deep 

as we have in our parsement
of breath to song
and tongue whispers
and roads
choate-ing chaos 

 the rhythms of chaotic systems are unnervingly familiar
we do not have a handle on this
interpret how we will
words
as live in caves
grasp what patterns
as are gleaned

Recorded

April 17, 2021

Songs and Dances of Death - Modest Mussorgsky - Benjamin Luxon, David Willison

this interpretation is over-acted
as though it were an opera scene
with characters
who do voices
in dialog scare 

the children 

large venue drama
don't want to be in a small room
with this

April 18, 2021

Parsifal, Act I - Richard Wagner - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Jose Van Dam, Victor von Halem, Kurt Moll, Peter Hofmann, Siegmund Nimsgern, Dunia Veizovic, Claes H. Ahnsjah, Kurt Tydl, Marjon Lambriks, Anne Gjevang, Helner Hopfner, Georg Tichy, Barbara Hendricks Janet Perry Doris Soffel Inga Nielsen

it lifts
but loses its way
back down
over again
each lift
leaves a glowing sound
to vanish upward
time has passed 

it's been ages 

||
sound design
: depths and heights
: within places and outside places
: distances near and distances far 

||
these characters mutter to themselves
a lot
lost in their dreamy dreams
his bluster shrinks in upon itself
hope is centered
on a verbal formula
we're told all about it
storytellers on stage
our legend so far
interrupted by a sudden event

||
effective orchestration of massed sounds
carefully adjusting the rhythms of their various parts
so that the whole of it
comes along independently
or according to a species of orchestrational parallax

Slavonic Dance in B-flat minor, Op. 72a #5 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi

I'm trying to picture this
as an actually danced dance
too many costume changes to keep up with

On Parade - John Philip Sousa

music for looking at men in uniform
a march is a corporate strut

Sonata in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 (#2) - Alexander Scriabin - John Ogden

never has
'in' been so troublesome
in the sense
in which this
is
in anything 

 so much sparkles! 

great contention

April 20, 2021

Pelleas et Melisande, Act IV - Claude Debussy - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit, Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Didier Henry, Gilles Cachemaille, Pierre Thau, Claudine Carlson, Francoise Golfier, Phillip Ens, Choeurs de l'OSM, Iwan Edward, Denise Masse

matters are getting complicated
suspicion
jealousy
fear
lust 

a collision of imperatives

Sonata in F-sharp, Op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - Vladimir Horowitz

all the passions 

all the time 

we are a tumult

April 21, 2021

Le Roi de etoiles - Igor Stravinsky - Igor Stravinsky, CBC Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Festival Singers

one four note chorale
to eviscerate
an entire school of choral repertoire

would make an excellent pairing
with Varèse's Equatorial 

a full scale oratorio
 in 4 minutes and a half

Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 - Serge Rachmaninoff - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, Serge Rachmaninoff

veers off
when somewhere
might accidentally
be got to 

is its own play by play 

decorative
with #emotive #moments
on every page

Ameriques - Edgard Varèse - Utah Symphony Orchestra, Maurice Abravanel

well waddayaknow
not Equatorial,
but not such a bad foil itself
at that 

took Stravinsky at his word
big blotches of sound walls
cruel and raw
graceless

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 19, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 1024 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1024 210419

Karen and I were on the porch for the first time this spring
Anna and Neal phoned in from Outpost Lake City
We made a gently quiet session
while A&N commandeer baseball

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

on another always in search rightly

and enter the dark night and be this toward

delights are in soul self incur because

Reality Check::

the pen is painfully blue

(today I cleaned my room

arranged my tapes in three neat little stacks)

Playlist

 Preface

"So where do discourses about music as expressive language locate themselves relative to music as music? Insofar as what they are is writing, done by musicians or by other people with serious relationships to their own musical experience, their relationship to music as music is less like the relation of theories to objects or phenomena than like the relation of poetry to love, or - indeed - of poetry to objects, phenomena, ideologies, ideas - to, even, theories. Namely, - by the nature of a music as a non-verbal utterance, as a phenomenon ontologized purely as experiential - such discourses are creative expressions, compositions, perforce creating verbal spaces resonating against the non-verbal spaces of music."

- Benjamin Boretz "Text: (for the Graduate Music forum at UCSD, 1/28/2003) Is Music Necessary?"  from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streaming

April 10, 2021

Choral Tapas - Seattle Pro Musica, Karen P. Thomas, director

music by 

Johannes Brahms - Wie Lieblich from the German Requiem

Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate - We are the Storm

and Serge Rachmininov - #6 from the Vespers

along with talk, snacks, and drinks

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/.

April 10, 2021

Raica (Chloe Harris)

1
why am I reading
this opening cyclic metrical pattern
as
first part second part
it isn't really the particulars of the pitches
or their patterns
is it that there is
||: 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/4 :||
that doesn't let go
it isn't until deep in
that I'm no longer sure I have been consistent
in assigning their ordinal functions
but the functioning assignment
continues unabated
even if erroneous

2
in this one I count to four
to organize a descending sequence
but it does not continue as cyclically countable
or usefully so

3
here the cyclic is a gently throbbing trochee
possibly groupable in 3s
but that is not an urgent inescapability

4
less need to group
but easy enough to do
behind and beneath these beats
are slower tones
catching
passing
in the distance
holed up
further in

5
the beats have fled
we enter the congress of slower tones
in their temples

6
here is where they keep the drumi-tones
articulate as two hands are

7
where the wind blows us
into the threes

April 11, 2021

Marcus Price

stepwise
it is a sound
that changes pitch
first
not a set of pitches
that share a sound
or
that share an emitting body
sliders
and dials
readouts in graphic form
linear chatterers flit past
don't mind the mess
we're doing some work
is it getting warm
or is it the sunshow coming on
enjoy the pretty
kick back

Recorded

April 11, 2021

Hallelujah - Cotton Belt Quartet [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

vaudeville gospel

Duo Concertante - Igor Stravinsky - Itzhak Perlman, Bruno Canino

I think this was the first middle period Stravinsky that I ever heard
back in High School
so pretty
so jaunty
this music was a stylish mix
a little song recital for violin and piano

Partita for Flute, Violin, and Strings - Paul Creston - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Scott Goff, Ilkka Talvi

dredging up the baroque as an antidote
to the modern
(times were bad, for sure)
back then we knew our place
we were servants
entertainers amusing our betters
in an orderly society
graceful tunes in stepwise descending sequence
harmless

Lincoln Portrait - Aaron Copland - London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland, Henry Fonda

he really really really really wanted to be The American Composer
we are the hokum folk
whitewashed our past
some of this contrapuntal stuff is just holding a space open
prolonging the waiting
a portrait in a series of pairs
1 a statement of facts
2 a quotation
with precious little rhetorical connection between the subject matter of the facts and the subject matter of the quotation

Lady Be Good - Ella Fitzgerald [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Did she ever work with Art Tatum?

Choral Prelude on "Bromsgrove" - Alec Rowley - Howard Wolvington [from a private recording]

big full sounding chords
patterns of older church musics
persist long past the fashion
I think the size of this piece was not helpful
unwieldy
undercomposed

Jim Dandy Got Married - LaVern Baker [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

a hero for an age
comic book type

April 12, 2021

Five Songs for Children - M. Henneyan - Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [ca. 1962]

clever pop
modern russo-francophilic
diatonic polite 

Mom was probably working these up for a Music Society meeting.

I Had a Dream - Paul Revere and the Raiders [from The Legend of Paul Revere]

California psychedelic
the Raiders had an uncanny ability
to sound exactly like their slice of the times
at the time
at whatever time they were
then

Artsah Ainu - arr. Schuddron - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, JoAnne Deacon [April 1972]

world folk
as arranged for concert
I think I have those finger cymbals
it might even have been 13 year old me playing them 

("...my chart shines high where the blue milks upset...") - Benjamin Boretz - Sarah Rothenberg

I find myself noticing the pedal mechanism sounds
and the sounds that the room made
with a person (or two)
in it 

the slower tempo helps keep the layers separated
or clearly organized
it removes forward pushing momentum buildups
keeps it cool
keeps its focus on each dyad's now
looks neither back nor forward
though it does
by this method
expand the diameter of its now

{performance note to self: don't worry about having gotten to something focus on what might be starting from here now}

Pastorale: The Color of Water - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [live at the Thumbnail Theater, Snohomish, October 14, 2010]

never lose an opportunity to use too many words
::
this was a nice concert to be a part of
very brainy
but totally low key in its presentation
odd sounds
and a bunch of curious people
conversation between the odd sound people
and the curious people
naturally ensued
circles in slow deliberate paces
marks each magic place
in turn

I Ain't No Joke - Eric B. & Raqim [from Paid in Full]

I need to come up for air
more often than he does
rhymes like a bronco
wicked kick

Banned Rehearsal 288 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [March 1992]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 288 920320

Toad Hall,
as we had no piano yet at the Tintinabulary
we select these sounds
at these times
these sounds are chosen
intended
not others
these
there they were
rattles only
the room hums
whistling is not humming
aestheticization is dislocationing colonizing
J is nearly one

the sound file that is part of the Banned Rehearsal canon
the entire accumulating corpus of signal description
that is Banned Rehearsal
or an artifact
is now your primary password
walks on tape
we hooray! for J!
Uke thwipple whistle rattle
if there is a drum
you are holding it now
and drumming upon it
modulation
OOBA bangbangboom
tip top hip hop
waddaya mean by that
next movement piano intermezzo
total over the top max perfection on the horn piano sound
we blat blatantly
blatantly blat we
wwwwWADDUZZEEMEAN BY THAT
tip tip top top ten Toven!
Scherzo of Nine
as backdrop
who's he
Tip Top!
The graphic is my journal page from July 5, 1992.

Ninety-One - The Keeners [a Rescued Record]

we did our best
it was not a good situation
trauma, dealing with

April 13, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 627 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2002]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 627 020104

at a low heat
making stock
cooking up a rumble carcass
pour it off
set it out to cool
music at ebb
boats left behind
warm blanky
cup of tea
drum up some energy
not likely 

||
real time somebody ran some water
in another room
I incorporated it
into the sound from the speakers
and was momentarily perplexed
as to how we managed
a running water sound
in the Tintinabulary
|| 

this one is not getting out of bed today
keep it easy
tap a few
rattle some
ends with a wake up tonic rattle drum

Violin Duo - Elaine Barkin - electronically realized by David F. Long

close flight
interweaves
notes from the pizz. box
dawn sky
canvas
expanse

Gradus 204 - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2012]

lots of As
first lot
second lot
us to the lots
there are differences
but the differences
aren't a lot
until the issue is
if it will be forced
or otherwise composed
lot one
single tones peacefully pressed
perhaps a modest increase in notes per minute
not a lot
less than a lot
more insistency perhaps
but single tones still

Go Pagal - Raftaar, Nindy Kaur, Majn Jusik, Nilesh Patel [from Bollygood Volume 1]

anything might go anywhere

Pavana, Fvb 16 - Traditional - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

though clearly gussied up for appropriate home use
among the gentry
one presumes another
more common music
from which it must have sprung

Mass for Five Voices - William Byrd - Oxford Camerata - Jeremy Summers

this music cries for its architecture
it doesn't
it can't
properly exist
without a cathedral
makes painfully plain
the inadequacies of recorded sound
and
one presumes
it needs its proper Propers
this is not a concert work
but part and only a part
of a liturgy

April 14, 2021

Symphony sacrae II "Meine Seele erhebt den Herren", Op. 10 #4 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

each stanza is in turmoil
triple echo on "leer" (empty)

Aria "More Palatino" in C, BuxWV 247 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

it don't mean a thing
if it isn't repletely embellished
and varied
its meaning becomes clear
through its embellishments
and variations
varying by means of shipping
with new consorts

Fantasia super Jesu Meine Freude, BWV 713 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Michael Chapuis

constructs a music within which a tune can be hidden
then shows it
what was within
has come out

Lamentationes pro die Veneris Sancto 2, in F Major - Jan Dismas Zelenka - Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Rene Jacobs, Guy D Mey, Kurt Widmer

early appearance of clarinet (1722)

Sonata in B-flat Major, Wq. 65.9 - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

moves with the smallest steps possible
I am holding very still
but I am not comfortable
single movement

Sonata in C Major, Kk. 117 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

goes
then observes
finds a new angle
goes there
then observes
better leave a few breadcrumbs

Trio Sonata in C Major - George Phillip Telemann - Opus 4

each movement has a name
perhaps for a tableaux
everybody dresses as an historical figure
and gives a report

Sonata in D Major, K. 311 (#9) - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lili Kraus

starting to sneak some formal hijinks in
such as the tagline measure at the end of the first movement's exposition
and then basing the development's opening
largely on that tagline measure's figuration 

composed to attract attention
please hire me

April 15, 2021

Symphony in G Major (#88) - Franz Joseph Haydn - Austro Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer

from back when symphonies were
for Haydn at least
mass market money making ventures
composed to be popular
royal favor no longer being enough
one wonders were his operas as full of fine music as the 2nd movement of this
I presume there are some
I may be wrong
[yes there are quite a few and also some Marionette operas and musical comedies (music lost alas)]
no matter where he gets to
he has always brought us
right there with him

Sonatina in G Major, Op. 36 #5 - Muzio Clementi- Howard Shelley

good left hand practice
and also for flipping the tune between the hands
keep it light

Symphony in D Major, Op. 36 (#2) - Ludwig van Beethoven - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter

I forgot to edit out the needle drop
the pressure is never released
there is no going back
each move to the next tonal area
goes both up and down
sometimes out
sometimes in
secret revenge
of the throwaway figuration
melody consisting of how figurations answer
each other
joinery
this is not Haydnesque
(just saying)
Sturm und Drang
fully integrated
tres Romantic
the weather changes
no bottle will hold this

Impromptu in G-flat Major, Op. 90 #3 - Franz Schubert - Murray Perahia

not among the standard key choices
indication that a bend toward the subdominant
would take us into realms heretofore unsearched
travel by way of the relative minor

Etude in E Major, Op. 10 #3 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad

another Romantic key - Bach's influence?
had equal temperament finally caught on
or had composer types just begun to stretch their wings
but also and more crucially
a new concept of how keys are expressed
and hence a completely new notion
of what a key might be

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

the always seemed so suited to the flock

friend brick factory had a stained a grimy

was copper in back the tin minister's

Reality Check::

monologue in the world

the ground wind sees

emphatically the sound of creaking house

Playlist

 Preface

"Take physics. The science. What is theoretical discourse in physics? Is it 'the theory of physics'? Does physics actually have a theory? Of course it does. but does it? You might think physics doesn't have a theory because physics is a theory - that's what it is, a theory. And what it's a theory of is not physics; it's the physical universe. A theory about physics is not the theory which is physics. Same for sociologies, histories, psychologies, semiologies, musicologies: What they are are theories. So what about music: is music itself, as composed, as performed, as internally or externally heard, a theory, something ontologically theoretical?"

- Benjamin Boretz "Text: (for the Graduate Music forum at UCSD, 1/28/2003) Is Music Necessary?"  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/.

April 3, 2021

Dave Abramson

stable pulse baseline with other-measured gaps
clear even while twisting around the pulse that doesn't budge
lightning in a jar
an attractive force
 that increases
with distance
at least
at the allowed
scale 

tunes the pace of the rolls
each drum or cymbal having a unique voice
composing with sets of voices in relation to each other
each voice further composed so as to be a clear function within any particular set of voices

April 4, 2021

Slingshot - Jessica Lurie, Heather Bentley

conversational in structure
the participants retain integrity individually
its argument proceeds methodically
without hurry but with full urgency
baseline quivering
a background to all
its presence
Ur-hum
from which even the vertical must come

vertical horizontal
graphic metaphor
can we hear
around its ubiquity
how clearly
the effect
that music notation on the page
(the fact of it)
has
upon how we understand
the experience of music
another scrim 

grownup music intelligently played

Recorded

April 3, 2021

From The Psalter - Milton Babbitt - Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, Lucy Shelton

transparent to the expression of its text
as thorny as it is

Consider the Birds 44 - Keith Eisenbrey [February 2007]

a layer
later assembled
with 43 other layers
to be a first study
in my Music as Film project 

thinking about fragments of sound
as though they were frames of a film 

show work
keep work
parts are pieces too 

I was thinking and continue to ponder on
the atomization of music
into notes 

can one construct from atoms
that aren't notes?

October Rain  - Robin Jackson and the Caravan [from dust diaries]

lines descend in the verses
chorus sets itself in multi directional lines

Banned Rehearsal 927 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 2017]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 927 170116

we find parts of a left bank cabaret tune
broken on the floor 

the door is operated
must be Neal
yes
and me on piano
probably
Aaron on the free reeds
yes
Karen and Steve operate the percussion and pluckers 

five ways to articulate
and how they chatter
Joyce, James
edges in

but that left bank cabaret tune
is still broken 

the accompanimental agendi
are plotting amongst themselves
under the radar
behind the curtain
here comes thunder

April 4, 2021

Robin, Fvb 15 - John Mundy - Claudio Columbo [from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book]

the two short phrases
end solid

balancing a longer phrase
longer than the two short phrases together
but still balanced, whole

Mass for 4 Voices - William Byrd - Oxford Camerata, Jeremy Summers

the text
Latin as it is
had meaning 

the setting is centered on the perceiver of the text
it is us
taking it in
as it speaks
to us
in its words 

this music is a model of an ideal perception of a more perfect understanding

Symphony sacrae II "Herr unser Herrscher, wie herrlisch ist dein Name", Op. 10 #3 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana

the fancy singing (ornate) somehow doesn't break the spell that binds the singer and listener
nor our thoughts of wonder

Suite in D minor, BWV 233 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella

the text is to be read carefully
mind the commentary
lines stop
separate themselves
as articulated groups
polyserial
(orders matter)

April 6, 2021

Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Albert Schweitzer

there is some discussion in the current wind
concerning digital vs vinyl
 measurable fact opinion: digital wins
||
gut reaction opinion: vinyl is clearly superior
||
but ask: digital recording of vinyl playback? 

perhaps the vinyl champions choose so
because the image of the signal is actually less clear
being obscured
forcing the mind's ear to fill in
what gets left behind the medium's scrim

digital leaves nothing
(or less)
to the imagination
it is not necessary for the mind's ear to complete the sound received
because that completion is never volitional
that and of course
each and every device
between signal and output
is unique
and distinguishing
on the fly
which parts
of what one is hearing
are due to signal
and which parts to the devices
is best left for those with more money to spend on devices than I 

Lamentationes pro die Jovis Sancto II in G minor - Jan Dismas Zelenka - Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Rene Jacobs, Guy D Mey, Kurt Widmer

the instrument parts enter first
in imitation
followed by the baritone vocal
also in imitation
as their equal
another created being
::
since these guys weren't writing for posterity
they never worried
whether the ensemble they wrote for
would ever exist again
the continuo was designed
to be realizable by any of several commonly available possibilities
and even the obbligato  instruments could be interchanged to some extent
an ad hoc culture

What role did the ascendancy of the fortepiano
as specialist
play
in ossifying the concept of the orchestra
as a specifically populated ensemble
as it became through the 19th Century?

Suite in E-flat Major - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

helpfully he harps on the head of his harmonic elaboration
if this were a sonata it would be a sonatina

Sonata in C minor, Kk. 116 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

baroque: one piece one affect
||
"classical": one piece multiple affects amplifying, or over articulating, a tonal schema
||
Scarlatti: where road and rubber meet

Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:10 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

as harpsichord lifted itself into a surrogate orchestra
demanding the development of fortepiano
and hammerklavier
to handle what was rapidly
and clearly
becoming imaginable

Sonata in C Major, K. 309 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lili Kraus

prodigal figurational imagination
each part of each phrase unique
to keep it straight
as it reappears
in new tonal guise 

nicely turned fake recapitulation
or was it
recap as part of the developmental elaboration
taking the repeat would have worked well in this
would add a further
sleeve's
ace
up his
got an
to the mix
in 3rd movement
hearing the upbeat echoed in the heavy cadential appoggiatura

Sonatina in F Major, Op. 36 #4 - Muzio Clementi

a sonatina asks
how much is necessary
to announce piecehood
image of a child
as a miniature adult

Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 30 #3 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy

begin with metrical obfuscation
pretend to clarify
repeat
so that we can imagine
we have our proper bearings 

2 opens with piano in the melodic lead
violin tracing an inner part
that outs an alternative harmonic implication
in addition to the straight up harmonic whole in progress

April 7, 2021

Sonata in D Major, Op. 46 - Friedrich Kuhlau - Loredana Brigandi

polite, comfort food

Die Winterreise - Franz Schubert - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore

for the pleasure of the tiny details
how the piano's voicing comments and illuminates
exploiting its subtle potential

each song sufficient unto itself
 contributing to
but not reliant upon all the others
nor on its place within a sequence 

music attempts a response to Romantic poetry
follows into the dragon's twisted lair 

though they remain complete
they seem less so
the further in we are pulled

April 8, 2021

Sonata in C Major (#9) - Johann Nepomuk Hummel - Constance Keene

1
halting ascent
then in perfect control
a clown act
clown peril 

2
refined sorrow
see Balzac for a backstory
no reason to go into it
not here
none at all
 everybody wants to be young
and Werther
and in despair 

3
there's the clown car at last
||
Shakespeare's clowns loosed the inappropriate into the Romantic imagination?

Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 30 #4 - Friedrich Chopin - Vladimir Horowitz

dancing lightly
out the myriad corners
of some old ditty

Boris Godunov, Act IV, Scene 3 - Modest 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 wider world is about to intrude and it won't be pretty
rumor arrives through the ecclesiastical news service
Latin? hm. geopolitics at work here
it won't end well for anybody

Parsifal, Good Friday Spell - Richard Wagner - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

wafts of sanctity spoiled
weary of resurrection
mired
sunk

Double Concerto, Op. 102 - Johannes Brahms - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma

echoes of those bi-manual variations in the Goldberg
how the soloists interact
 often it is cello that leads and supports
pas de deux
fluid modality
first step to the hard drugs of fluid tonality 

odd episodes of unanswering responses

Nutcracker Excerpts, Track 1 - Piotr Ilyich Tchakovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy

orchestration study

Down Yonder In The Cornfield - The Diamond Four [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

vocal ensemble rhythm and tempo play with train whistle and bell 

from 1897 no less

Pelleas et Melisande, Act III - Claude Debussy - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit, Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Didier Henry, Gilles Cachemaille, Pierre Thau, Claudine Carlson, Francoise Golfier, Phillip Ens, Choeurs de l'OSM, Iwan Edward, Denise Masse

the playwrite seduces them with their own language
Debussy assists 

in order to make the music sensible
they must succumb 

to think only 10 years separates this from the Nutcracker 

ripples never tire
their baleful effect will be known soon enough

April 9, 2021

3 Pieces, Op. 52 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti

pitch set colors in
and creating
register sets
so that as the pitch set colors
shift they bring their registers with them
fluidly
see hard drugs above

Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 - Arnold Schoenberg - Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, Jan DeGaetani

woozy walzy
?: Sprechstimme is more like talking or reciting than straight up singing is
but not so near to reciting as Neals' Finnegans Wake performances are

that it lines up with the music
sometimes clearly part of the music
other times not so clearly part of the music
puts the two
reciting and singing
at new odds with each other
as though the instrumental parts
were literally the strings being manipulated by the puppet master
||
the ensemble
now eponymous
composed ad hocery
not so interchangeable as the baroque ad hoc ensembles
||
 so back to the Sprechstimme
as being not completely embedded in the "music"
does it make it more difficult to hear the "music" of it
as it would be were it straight up sung?
but the sense in which it isn't singing is subtle
it isn't singing always
but mostly it is
and even when it isn't
it mostly is 

 confession: this is the first time I've listened to this 

music on a slippery surface

A Civil War Memory - They Are There - Gregg Smith Singers [from The Great Sentimental Age]

gung ho for the soldier boys off to war what fun

Symphony in E minor, "Nordic" (#1) - Howard Hanson - Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz

springs from the womb fully fraught
with tender heart 

there are alas no fjords in the heartlands
how sad
nostalgic expatriotism
its a bit of a jumble though 

 a believer in themes
another poor soul
misled by Wagner 

a series of unearned moments
suitably charged for symphonic use
or burdened
look ma I'm a Symphony now 

even a bit of the old gung ho
as we vanquish the new land 

ah the ancient sadness of our ancestral home
really wants to do the Sibelius trick of tying it all up in the end
but we're really just back where we started and still haven't earned it

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 5, 2021

Banned Telepath 74 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey

April 6, 2021

Banned Telepath 74 Toad Hall - Aaron Keyt

Banned Telepath 74 Archives - from Banned Rehearsal 51 850901: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer; from Banned Rehearsal 204 900127: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt; from Banned Rehearsal 289 920327: John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt; from Banned Rehearsal 427 960622: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, John Hunter, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer; from Banned Rehearsal 454 970531: Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer; from Banned Rehearsal 1012 201019: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Banned Rehearsal 1023 - from Archives: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, John E, John Hunter, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer; from Tintinabulary: Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey; from Toad Hall: Aaron Keyt

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1023 210405 - 06

I had asked the banned members to each provide a whole number between 1 and 1022. I then applied a formula (multiply by 17 then subtract 1022 as necessary to get a number between 1 and 1022) to those numbers and I then assembled a sound file from each of the Banned Rehearsals that were so numbered, which sound file I labeled Banned Telepath 74 Archives. Together with the sounds that Karen and I made on the 5th (Neal's phone ran out of charge at the inopportune moment) and the sounds that Aaron made on the 6th, this has become part of Banned Rehearsal 1023. 

April 7, 2021

Work Architecture Unity And The - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

I gave my 2002 piano piece another go.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

thing is going to happen it is dark my

lord and I hear in rubber shoes twice

flashlight over I keep eyes awake a

Reality Check::

marionette being shaken

a cube stretch, dark

in the oblique sun

Playlist

 Preface

"What does the discourse of music have to do with the practice of music, or with the expressive or intellectual presence of music in our lives? Music as practiced locally is an expressive language - or, rather, a territory of expressive languages whose medium is normally sound. Writing is also an expressive or intellectual - the words are denotatively, if not connotatively, interchangeable - art form; and people who do and care about music are sometimes also verbally expressive; and their verbal expression tends to reflect their involvement with music - music, in one way or another, is likely to be a character or a presence or a looming spectre in their discursive novels, treatises, or algorithms."

- Benjamin Boretz "Text: (for the Graduate Music Forum at UCSD, 1/28/2003) Is Music Necessary?"  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 27, 2021

Tom Varner's Sound Vespers Ensemble

Samantha Boshnack & Greg Kelley, trumpet; Ray Larsen, cornet; Jim Knodle, flugelhorn; Haley Freedlund, trombone; Tom Varner, French horn; Greg Campbell, percussion and tuba; Steve Barsotti & Steve Peters, field recordings/electronics.

ships at sea
night mutters
calls and songs
harbor snooze 

ice drums
thunder crack 

||| 

cyclic thwups
woodland walk
taut treetrunk carom
kissy shuff
spring twang
drum
!túk!
active surrounding
refreshed
recreatured 

|||

horns
chatting quiet
wine veranda
chorus joined
lift our voices skyward
ground rotation platform
where ice grinds along 

||| 

a colony of bickerers by the surf settle into their feathered sleep
bring down the boats
pull the nets from their holds
lingering hue of their remains

March 28, 2021

Symbion Project (Kasson Crooker)

comes on like a landscape painting
ornate detail
into the crannies 

goes all epic grandeur
aerial sweep
channel sweep
groove out
quiet garden

Recorded

March 28, 2021

Pelleas et Melisande, Act II - Claude Debussy - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit, Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Didier Henry, Gilles Cachemaille, Pierre Thau, Claudine Carlson, Francoise Golfier, Phillip Ens, Choeurs de l'OSM, Iwan Edward, Denise Masse

in Verdi
the line of song speaks the immediate awareness of the character
(outs their in) 

in Wagner
the line of song speaks the immediate intent of the character
(outs their desire) 

in Debussy
the line of song speaks the immediate shape or form of the character
gestures figure expression face clothing their living bodies
(outs their out) 

in that sensibility
closer to Schumann
an exquisite pantomime

Sonata, Op. 53 (#5) - Alexander Scriabin - Vladimir Ashkenazy

deep draughts of fineness of expression
did inhale
sleight of finger figuration

Concerto in D-flat Major, Op. 10 (#1) - Serge Prokofiev - Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Antoni Wit, Kun Woo Paik

drama sweep opening
like Busoni's or Tchaikovsky's
then he puts on the silly nose and glasses
here comes the grump
a lot of Busoni in this
aspirationally 

really quite a packed 16 minutes
a dense farce

Russian Peasant Songs - Igor Stravinsky - Gregg Smith Singers, Gregg Smith

to explain
what he was hearing
what a strange ensemble
french horns and women's voices
rarely ceases to astound 

Wikipedia lists this as for female voice unaccompanied (I think, it is unclear), but the track listing in The Original Jacket Collection shows Four Russian Peasant Songs: For Equal Voices with Four Horns: I. On Saints' Days in Chigisakh (Revised 1954 version); II. Ovsen (Revised 1954 version); III. The Pike (Revised 1954 version); and IV. Master Portly (Revised 1954 version)

Little Poem - Alexander Krein - Jonathan Powell

posterized Scriabin
discrete layers
sinks back exhausted

Madison Rag - Gus Cannon [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

a completely fabulous country style banjo piece
and tune
with an unfamiliarly inflected vocal
unfamiliar in the context of that fabulous country style

Clanka A Lanka (Sleep On Mother) - Famous Bluejay Singers of Birmingham [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

vocal imitation of a guitar figure or drumming

Old Dad - John Rector [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

some fiddlin' has a highlands waft to it

March 29, 2021

Walking The Floor Over You - Ernest Tubb [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]

recognizable even to me as country music
(Allen calls it honky-tonk)
guitar and upfront vocal

Symphony 3 - Peter Mennin - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

1 Muscular Merican Music for Muscular Merican Movies muscularly going nowhere but as it was taught
2 lonely night on the prairie a great deal of gingham
3 industry stirs Stalin woulda loved it

::from my journal entry of June 15, 2002::

1 vigorous, "rhythmic" line: active in the poetic foot department city street balletic quiet coda like a shadow
2 indoor opera solo slow soulful small
Kammer-mused
a waiting scene
passion under wraps
determination from in the face of
if you push it
it resists
3 something gathering party brawl battle parade storm vigorous honest dance a contest

Suite for Wind Quintet - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Schönberg Ensemble

collects its surrounding as it goes
shake it off
live with it
the inner life
of what was collected
facing stern truth
abiding stillness 

child's play
inscrutable chains
of let's say
these don't behave like musical motives
they play like themselves

March 30, 2021

Violin Concerto (rough edit) - Benjamin Boretz - Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Geoff Pope, Charles Castleman

already a complete net of internal instrumentals set against each other
and it's just a few notes on a few strings

what makes a concerto a concerto
discrete groups of sounds working with each other
a collaboration 

this is a tangle from the second note
parts move forward
parts head sideward
start over
from where we weren't
do it again
exactly unlike before 

standing
a discursive leap
to the side of the shoulders
of the before 

these forests are wide
no shortcuts
they aren't done with you yet
linear logic need not apply

Hey! Baby - Bruce Channel [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

mixed
for the 45
blatant
for bad speakers

24 Preludes, 21 through 24 - Lockrem Johnson - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded December 1, 2020]

21 too note-y doesn't flow
22 too correct needs more pizzazz
23 too slow needs to go places not plod there
24 too light on the dynamic modeling need to overact more

Papa Was A Rollin' Stone - The Temptations [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

vastly more sophisticated mix
than Hey! Baby
whole other planet
irreproducible live
any attempt would sound bizarre
no hall could hold it

"...such words as it were vain to close..." - J. K. Randall - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded April 19, 2016]

a bit too sprightly
nervous
somewhat better in the middle of it
in that the rhythmic flow
is nicely wrongish

turns pitch class on its head
doesn't mean what you think it means
not here
in that it starts
and stops
without beginning fuss
or ending fuss

Know Your Rights - The Clash [from Combat Rock]

preacherman fails his song

March 31, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 109 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1987]

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 109 870103

we rub balloons with amazing grace
lame is allowed
we work to skew our fellow intonation buddies 

[NB we have skipped 107 and 108 for now because they were assembled from telepaths and at that time I dated the telepaths from when I first assembled them after the tapes found me (it could be months) they'll show up eventually the good lord willing and the creek don't rise] 

we now happen to be playing trombone
(see below, I heard incorrectly, this was the bugle)
guitar ukulele and nasal vocal
just keep swimming
input set to hot
I analyze the precedent
why wouldn't
mutually exploratory improvised vocal harmonizations
not be a soft pillow
upon which to wallow in the joy of liberated intonation 

we switch partly to new instruments
for new thoughts
after intermission
verse 2! 

the change
success not required
nor continuity
only keep at it 

modulates to Hey Hey Hey
in the Greenwood Big House (musta was)
bears may safely snore at the bottom
so preachin'
can yaw 

oh my darlin' oh my darlin' oh my darlin' Clementine
where is our friend Hammurabi
is he your friend or is he mine

::from my journal entry of May 7, 1988::

balloons and Aaron
humming grace amazing
harmonica
instrumentation shifts through
to guitar bugle voice ukulele
struggling to _______
often the insistence on a familiar
could indicate a stance
unwilling to engage
in the developing task at hand
on this drumming guitar string drone we integrate our activity

a score to consider for an improv
recall an old standard
only play
play with
work at
its first note

lovely
we sing as three a moment
considering then
back in re-instrumented new
ocarina-rapid
bugle-low
plunky uke (pp)
dulcimer
we integrate as a rule most successfully
whenever the familiar is absent
familiar = resistance to forward
faith deepening
new mbiru dulcimer flute
the room sound here
is peaceful intimate
perhaps general to this and many other tapes
another new loud voice loud guitar and slap drum
as though all before is finally cooked
breaks in middle to bring in a uke
and bell
a new voice Hey Hey Hey by Keith
light version scat fun
bugle last word breath
some sounds still bouncin' around ala BR #9
oh my darlin Clementine where is our friend Hammurabi?

::from my journal entry of January 31, 1991::

hymn sing
it is better
to sing sitting solidly
on the broad back of the world tortoise
than not 

oh my darling oh my darling oh my darling Clementine will you read your Hammurabi

April 1, 2021

Concerto for Two Trumpets in C - Antonio Vivaldi - Canadian Brass [from The Essential Canadian Brass]

torches to light a space
arranging the strings' music for brass
oddly
makes the accompaniment
often
more spectacular
than the erstwhile solo trumpets

Banned Rehearsal 443 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 443 970131

soulful kazoo
case snaps
electric guitar scrapings
whistle rustle
squeezing sound through a tight aperture
bug guitar voice
music in a long thin chamber
abrading the walls guitar
too big
but sounds great
a problem with guitars
mine this time
pedaling stalwartly on violin
to keep the lights on
scrape key
screeep key
cranking up the voltage now
our skin stretches as we pull it through
Isaac objects 

||| 

a latching of cases
as we adjust instrumentation
we settle down for a sit down and a snore 

|||

the scrape wagon reloaded
the Mighty Wurlitzer peeks in on us
as we cram ourselves through
a room exists to be saturated with sound

::from my journal entry of October 25, 2004::

opens with some obsessive fiddle playing
goes on past its welcome
quiets down finally
Isaac is a bit fussy 

a diminishment of energy
weak
some low brass is heard
at about 30 minutes in
the guitar comes back
with toys and some great stuff happens by
very strong
in what is otherwise a fairly off-night kind of session*
energy dissipates somewhat

*I vehemently disagree with my past self on this

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

have not yet far enough known with impunity

but if Titorelli had never known

it yet again for heart of his wife it

Reality Check::

the oak leaf jumps from road to puddle

the stone track sits on a wool blanket

two dragons swallow each other