Preface
"If there is anything outside of language
it cannot be said that there is.
But there is.
Is there?"
- Benjamin Boretz "(Postscripts)" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"
Texts
Streaming
May 5, 2021
University of Washington Faculty Live Stream
Cristina Valdés
For Piano Alone in Four Parts (2009) - Wayne Horvitz
Otra vez (2019) - Melia Watras
Shimmer, Tree | In Memoriam Jonathan Harvey (2014) - Kotoka Suzuki
I. Like a gentle wind
Mano a Mano (1997-2007) - Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez
I. Chorale
II. Bajo Punteado
III. Genghis
IV. Ariles de
Campanario
V. Ariles y más Ariles
méditations sur le piano 8 (carillon) (2019) - Eva-Maria Houben
Mística (2003) - Tania León
I must applaud enthusiastically
jumping up and down
shouting yes yes yes yes
whenever a performer performs music by people they have actually met and
spoken to, and so, on top of her usual hyper-focused musicality, this program was a fine selection of her own music, fully owned.
heaven.
Horvitz -
groups relate to groups
across a boundary
a provisional thesis
concerning a way of thinking
abut how it might go
boundaries have flavors
that form patterns
Watras -
like wasps
again
a domestic drama
Suzuki -
thimble thumbs
multiple independent motions
multiple independent
still points
fingernails
without pressing
Gutierrez -
playful hands
full of playful
a figurational technician
Houben -
so bogglingly lovely
I wrote nothing down
León -
engaged in the physical gestures of the playing of it
the figures are
actions taken
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/.
May 1, 2021
Sue Ann Harkey
12 strings
40 years
50 dollars
tuning strings and amplification to each other
or along with
each co-tuning explores potential fields
ringing traces linger
the co-tuning is a strong stem
firm roots
we don our skates
oops fell over
a
doubled wire
imitates the atomic nature of pitch
exposes its episodic moment
that is
any pitch moment is an episode
metaphorically atomic
a pitch that is
itself
a dissonant relation
without effort
May 2, 2021
Jim Knodle and Kirill Polyanski
bounces on its haunches
while the music comes around
then gets right on
(a
couple of pitch freaks)
(still a few of us around)
a series of distinct
conversations carried to completion
their own distinct completions
stay on
topic
Recorded
May 1, 2021
Sonatina in D Major, Op. 36 #6 - Muzio Clementi - Howard Shelley
how to tell a story
Sonata in D minor, Op. 31 #2 "Sturm-Sonate" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff
1
Kempff to my ears
is struggling to make the blatant subtle
just a bit too
careful
too modulated
but it is clear
2
and it serves well in this movement
where the orchestration is so delicate
3
also at a careful tempo
which allows
differentiation of touch
to be heard clearly
but that also gives us time
to
not get lost
in the metrical hijinks
we keep our bearings
not quite violent
Die Winterreise, (1-12) - Franz Schubert - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore
this time through I am reading along in the score
confined keys
resist
melody and accompaniment
conceived together
neither would be nearly what they are
without the care
with which support and comment is provided
Etude in C-sharp minor, Op. 10 #4 - Frédéric Chopin - Cecile Licad
music is no longer for polite company
the radicals are loose
Parsifal, Act II - 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
enchantments and curses and other mind games
yet another stupid knight
climbing mountains to find an enchanted maiden
their big set number is lovely
as Kundry's argument becomes more expansive
the meter changes
from 6/8 to 9/8
reverts to 6/8
to 4/4
for Parsifal's regret
(K is in 3)
then reaches out to
him
for first kiss day
in 4
Am4tas
(I guess the kiss worked)
Slavonic Dance in B-flat Major, Op. 72 #6 - Antonín Dvořák - The Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi
lighthearted in a way that Brahms, e.g., could never manage
pleasant evenings
at the bandstand in the square
everybody wears their fancy bonnets
Track 2, Selections from The Nutcracker- Piotr Ilyich Tchakovsky - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
what was ever like this
before this?
what were those early 19th Century
Parisian ballets
(from which this derives aspirationally)
like
as events
to be
at?
Sonata in G-sharp minor, Op. 19 - Alexander Scriabin
pulls in the magic
before he manages to inform us
of what key he was
ostensibly in
that is some pretty crazy keyboard figuration thing
he's got
going there
Pelleas et Melisande, Act V - 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
this starts as though it will end well
will it
doubt it
surely healing
oh ache
H as a pitch or key
(in H or h)
Ahc Ach cah h a c cha cah
parenthesize freely
retreats into itself
the ache of grief
anticipated
Balzac
invented this sort of
only the French would understand
anguish
center of
civilization
and all that claptrap
this music seeks that POV
exactly
of their
spiritual joining
it is important as a fact
that no words were left out
the
music is entirely subservient to the text
the music plays Kundry
to text's
Amfortas
as she approaches death
he listens
more carefully
he would like
to
speak
to the little sister
death
himself
Debussy and Berlioz may have been the only Frenchmen who, having read Balzac, lived up to his ideal.
Symphony in E minor (#2) - Sergei Rachmaninoff - Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin
1
royalty has forebodings
I must admit the big tune
as to how it goes by
without ever actually being
is somehow earned
or feels so
2nd theme group could be read
as a variation on a tune
that has been hinted at
I remember the dances
she was so lovely
the little violin on one shoulder
and clarinet on the other shoulder
hmhmhm
how Hegelian
it's in the oven now
cooking
everything is proceeding according to my plan
heh heh ehe ehe
and so triUMPHally is Brought Forth
:::
TUNEBIRD!
is that it?
it's a
(((egg)))
well that was a bust
||
((send 'em out whistlin'
but by all necessary means
send them out))
||
2
let's try something completely different
let's have an Instragram Worthy Adventure
extreme sport
extremely sporty
ok that's fun
but what about
o that's it
ah
TUNEBIRD!!
[at his best Rachy rendered Hollywood unnecessary
(but the hats! oh, the hats!) kee kee]
how yearningly I wish to miss thee
did I just say that out loud
TUNEBIRD
(is LAST GAMBIT of KEY
is Key's Last Gambit)
3
[A VISION]
for clarinet and rapture
tunebird as a totally hot wench
high class of course
but hot
dance of the ten villion bails
get comfy
it will take time
we have the beginning of tune
I'll play it again
so as it will be rememberfied proper
several times
what I tell you more than three times
is more true
I thought this was over long ago
unless 4 has already started?
4
NOPE
public party time
tunebird's gettin' married!
the learned tune
working on its part
so that it can be put together
for the payoff
(tunebird from heaven)
best get back to work
shake it off
the tempi converge
such fun
a parade
(don't forget TUNEBIRD!)
Here we are!
TUNEBIRD so swan-like
is this a ripoff?
send 'em out forgetting
May 4, 2021
extreme registral separation
both vertical and structural*
(*sequence
patterning)
discrete parts
treated discretely
oh so discretely
has the
urgency of sincere prayer
closest France ever got to Mussorgsky
Concerto in D Major (31) - Sergei Prokofiev - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Jan Krenz, Shizuka Ishikawa
the key here
something fondly remembered
irrecoverable as a whole
it used to
live here
1917 interesting times in Russia
conflicted ironic nostalgia
Little Waltz - Ruth Crawford Seeger - Jenny Lin
an attractive throwback
or more of its time
than one expects
of a later RCS
franco-russo-philicism
Symphony in B Major "To October" (#2) - Dmitri Shostakovich - London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Alldis Choir, Bernard Haitink
opens in a mood oddly reminiscent of Central Park In the Dark
but
actually articulate
music such as Shostakovich or Prokofiev promulgated
and
the internationalist world in which that music swam
even then
was something of
a security leak
problem
one couldn't imagine the state
caring so much about it
if the world wasn't also aware of it
propaganda control
composing in
Soviet-face
the culture of the bourgeoisie
was quasi-interpermeable
across
boundaries
had to keep it going
to save face
mid-goal arrived at
by arriving
at it
rather than
by getting there
but then it goes on
and undercuts
or what
celebrate and call it a victory
Preacher Blues - Henry Brown [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
what rock solid sounds
innocent of metronomes
of any time sense
that
isn't internal to itself
May 6, 2021
Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion - Béla Bartók - Alfons Kontarksy, Aloys Kontarsky, Christoph Caskel, Heinz Konig
borders on heavyhanded
how it explains itself
what is related to what
and how
popular modernity
it shouts
its up to the minute cred
Fibonacci I guess
but
who's counting
(and what?)?
balanced gestures are operative
[NB - my own A
Cat's Life has a similar outlook, actually, come to think of it]
modern music
as theater
clever by the full measure
Not Mine - Peggy Lee [from The Complete Recordings 1941-1947]
lovelorn dinner club tune
for those overseas
and those left stateside
something to look
forward to
In Session at the Tintinabulary
May 3, 2021
Banned Telepath 75 Tintinabulary - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
May 4, 2021
Banned Telepath 75 Toad Hall "May the Fourth be with you" - Aaron Keyt
Banned Rehearsal 1025 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt Neal Kosály-Meyer
The weather did not cooperate for us to play on the porch, so we were back in the studio, to which Anna and Neal phoned from Outpost Lake City, and to which Aaron sent sounds from Outpost Toad Hall
Postscripts
::Consult the Oracle
-rections a poisonous black cloud boiling
with bolts of power and gouts and shrieks of
agony and blacker until over
Reality Check::
iris ask'd
solstice into
open olive lakes
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