{The Cold Water Cure}
George Cruikshank - from "The Comic Almanack. 1st
Series, 1835-1843"
Texts
Live
July 11, 2024
The Last Milonga
Mark Hilliard Wilson, with Leanna Keith, Kristine
Rominsky, and Peter Nelson-King
Chapel Performance Space, Good
Shepherd Center, Seattle
I didn't really try to keep up with what was what
as it went by
so
here's what I wrote down
terroir
sprout from the earth
rhythm drum
Milonga
entangled cowboy music
ensorcells from the motion
it will be
true
draped from melody
softly to the ground
a passacaglia
follows
march of the troops
silence in the night
evening falls
and settles
the earth rhythm
reclaims its floor
transformed
Darius Milhaud with Leanna
earth and air
a
bit of that old metrical modulation
Pastorka?
with Kristine
whither it blows
it goes
a pleasant morning
happy
breeze
the history of the Tango
Piezzola? {NB: nope, Piazzola}
like
Chopin waltzes
this depicts
an actual
imaginary
tango
or several
mid movie
sad montage
with time
comes
resignation
and long experience
time now for decadence
and
dissolute doings
a song
of dialogue
from an opera
with
Peter
a prayer
Ravel Habanera
dancing around the end of
nothing
with trumpet
a lovely healing concert thanks to all involved!
Recorded
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
The Black Maskers (Orchestra Suite) - Roger Sessions - Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Howard Hanson
this music opens
without regard for the American West
music
is from the East
from across the pond
(I wonder if Emerson Lake & Palmer
ever considered trying this
anti-Rodeo)
yet
it shares some of the same square-jawed phraseology
on
occasion
2 Episodes - Arthur Berger - Robert Helps
this music has no skin
entirely interior to itself
|| I was introduced to Arthur Berger once back at Bard ||
it can't be heard from outside
3 Anti-Modernist Songs: "Hark! From the Pit a Fearsome Sound" - Henry Cowell - Continuum, Cheryl Seltzer
lifted from a hostile review?
Selections from "A Ceremony of Carols" - Benjamin Britten - University Temple Chancel Choir, Chris Vincent
I am in this choir
knowing the voices intimately
Chris did some
truly amazing things with us
Composition for Twelve Instruments - Milton Babbitt - Erik Carlson [from The Slowly Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]
interparty gestural sharing
these are gestures
but
they
require several to accomplish
they are gestures of travel between
instruments
continuous strands
Bear Cat - Rufus Thomas [from Sun Records Definitive Hits]
yowza!
complete with cat-fight sounds right into the mic
'Round and 'Round - Chuck Berry [from The Best of Chuck Berry]
stomps
with almost no bounce
It's All Right - The Impressions [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
great band back there
even the vamping
has character always
Spiral (Version Elektrochord) - Karlheinz Stockhausen
a blippy bloopy synth sound
associated with schlock sci-fi films
then as now?
wanders into spectacle
pretty fun Stockhausen actually
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
Quartet in F-sharp minor, Op. 142 (#14) - Dmitri Shostakovich - Fitzwilliam Quartet
at first they get along
then they begin to snipe
a series of soliloquys follows
punctuated by episodes of
figure-chains
a small room
obscurely furnished
displaced from the possibility of
outside its walls
a song
to the empty stars
quick words
spilt
pieced together
slowly
with heightened care
a refreshing zephyr of memory
Arkansas Traveler - Gordon Tanner, Phil Tanner, Art Rosenbaum, Larry Nash [from The Art of Field Recording, Volume 1]
straight man
comic man
routine
with string band scribbles
between
July 8, 2024
Greeting - Ellen Taafe Zwilich - Claudia Stevens
a formula
a handshake
a hailing signal
Banned Rehearsal 130 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [January 1, 1988]
we make coffee
to a low trombone pedal
we enter with noisy bluster
soon subsided
Gourmet Irish Lutheran Coffee
for when Neal
performs Finnegans Wake in Wisconsin
recollections of Eliza
the
animal magnetism of a dead body
proceeds at a slant
Hi Ho
readings from Vonnegut and Faulkner
drink coffee out of sugar bowls
Aaron vamps on the Bundler
while I try to cue up Eliza for some
reason
let's go and see what's going on in the other Act
the
Overture
being the best part of Eliza
and Shirley the bass
trombone
time flies
you can't
they move too quickly
the Overture is over
David's Basemundler March
the tape we
made of the Unnamable
we were clearly too tired to focus this session
we reverted
String Quartet 6 - Milton Babbitt - Erik Carlson [from The Slowly Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]
agents move slowly among our scattering thoughts
I hear notes in lines
as parts of a melodic experience
their pointillist natures
overridden
by the context of their places
within the
fabric
a dense and intricate weave of lines of notes
Banned Rehearsal 479 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 10, 1998]
one wonders whether beginning has begun
before unmistakable clarinet
squeaks
and upright pokes confirm the worst
voices enter
by
several means
from several times
wanders without seeming to
this was a "round robin" session
wherein only a subset of us was
in the studio at any one time
each thread of intent
independently
skewing our experience
of the other threads of intent that embody this
if sounds
have a body
what kind of thing
would it
might it
could it
be
the 'sound itself'
has the body
of a collaboratively improvised
puppet
if
we metaphorize it
as a body
personality of the puppet
changes with personnel
each segment of a culture
culture objects
are idio-cultures
a token of the subsuming culture
as well as a model of it
bee whispering
in parallel conceptions
of getting the issue
out in the open
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
sounding careful if not composed
a roundrobin
interrupted by knock
on door
recorded conversation
(brought in from the house, I think)
shrill clarinet
matched
by a time-depth rich rhythmic
accompaniment
in percussion and prerec
lots of banging and honking
clarinet
hang in there
but not much else
objet
d'kitsch
on mic
musicy piano
thankfully out of tune
two separate questions
what is the smallest moment useful
in
hearing this in context
what might be the smallest moment useful
in hearing this
not in context
how large a thing
must
I find
for satisfaction
how much of this
must
hang
together
Aaron attempts to frighten Holden
at long distance
a problem with roundrobin sessions
because of comings and goings
communal engagement is low
there is too easy an out
given a
strong incoming agenda
or a sensitive ear to joining}
Serves Him Right - Betty LaVette [from A Woman Like Me]
our troubling thoughts
of others' vengefulness
Theme and Three Variations - Sean Osborn - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, June 5, 2010]
a string of notes
played through
in rhythms new and various
carefully damper pedaled
a suitable piece for me
suits me to
a T
Freddy - Sage [from Forked]
the status of this harmonic rhythm
is less like that of chords in
changes
as it is
in voices
in fluctuating relationships
Gradus at Cornish (beginning) - Neal Kosály-Meyer [January 20, 2018]
a Prelude to check the levels
eventually this will begin properly
I presume
as it is
I listen to nothing at all
a note
when it appears
is a whole
the recording has some filter
(inadvertent?)
that messes with it
not uninterestingly
something like:
signals above a certain
amplitude
are stripped off into a . . .
or better
are
instantly seared away
by focused heat
laserly trimmed
KLIV - The No Ones [from My Best Evil Friend]
phantasmagoric
psychedelic
high end wash
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
O Lucidissima Apostolorum Turba (De Apostolis, Responsorium) - Hildegard Von Bingen - Sequentia, Barbara Thornton
impetuous forward press
rapturous relaxed fall
Felice Primavera - Carlo Gesualdo - Delitiæ Musicæ, Marco Longhini
phrases linger toward their cadences
Er wird sein Kleid in Wein waschen, SWV 370 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
flowing past cadences
spilling over the lines of verse
Praeludium in F Major, BuxWV 144 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Stella Simone
sets the key in place
top to bottom
and dusts off its workings
with a fugue
Quatrieme Ordre (la): Les Baccanales - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
overlapping harmonic interjections
inégalité
a
performance practice
that privileges the notes on the beats
by
increasing their relative length
so that
the back of beat notes
seem light
so that
the whole dances
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
about the size of the first part of a binary form
Sonata in E minor, Kk. 232 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
finding methods to slow our progression from A to B
after first
demonstrating
how short the distance could be
Sonata in D minor, Wq. 63/2 - Carl Philip Emanuel Bach - Miklós Spányi
stripped back to the strictly necessary
each twitch tells
cadences
with delayed deceptions
Keyboard Sonata in E Major, Hob. XVI:22 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Christine Schornsheim
once stripped back
new games can be played
without being tripped
up
by the undergrowth
worlds can expand
that might otherwise
become mired
by de riguer contrapuntal estuarities
here
all the spaces are clearly marked
there are no dead-end
pathways to distract
Sonata in A minor, K. 310 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida
two musics on stage
what the piano announces in public
and what it
says to the wings
theater magic
alone in a quiet room
fourth wall firmly intact
when in doubt
articulate clearly
when not it doubt
articulate clearly
anyway
Couperin decorates beats
Mozart mostly decorates the back
ends
also
fancy courtesies
Mozart's characters are intensely
present to our sympathies
we care what they are saying
Sonata in D Major, Op. 10 #3 - Ludwig van Beethoven - Wilhelm Kempff
I think a valid claim could be made
not
that the modern piano is a
better instrument for Beethoven Sonatas
but rather
that the
Beethoven Sonatas
made a necessity of the modern piano
imagine the perversity of switched-on Beethoven
the modern piano
is optimally designed for Beethoven Sonatas
and
exists
because they do
full stop
the material of the music
is the whole incarnation of a character
singing
it sings from within us
knowing where one is
distracts from immediacy
Ludwig's not letting on
he may not know entirely himself
does the familiarity
with repetitions of the first segment of a binary
form music
affect our sense
that the third iteration in a line
will always be a new thing?
immediate gratification of short-term memory banks
adult swim Clementi
puppet show
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
ornaments on the beat back
and full of notes
metrical marker
pattern token
Sonatina in C Major, Op. 55 #6 - Friedrcih Kuhlau - Loredano Brigandi
this music never does the wrong thing
a paragon of virtue
Sir
Lancelot
or Galahad
(modest too)
or Do-Right
an extensive sonatina as they went back then
everything was getting
bigger
Quintet in C Major, K. 956 - Franz Schubert - Vellinger Quartet, Bernard Greenhouse
this music wonders
worries
and has hopes
about where it will
land
intertransformation of scenes
and other stage magics
phrases with internal existential crises
clarity of lyrical design
allows an expanse
in which to let it
play out
shadows across the imagination
dance movements with dungeons still and
deep
a mocking danse macabre
even that
with a darker side
and
doubts
and hopes
Variations brillantes on Je vends des scapulaires from Hérold's Ludovic in B-Flat Major, Op. 12 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson
but first
an extensive preambular flourish or three
before we can
present anything like a plain theme
but then
it is as if he lost
interest in it
Phantasie in C Major, Op. 17 - Robert Schumann - Alicia de Larrocha
melody borne on clouds
descends toward our sphere
we struggle to
attain it
quick angular cuts
working hard
brick by brick we
build
Die Stille Lotusblume, Op. 13 #6 - Clara Schumann - Dorothea Craxton, Hedayet Djeddikar
moral instruction
by means of close poetic observation
 |
| Yakima Greenway Trail |
Mefistofele, Epilogue - Arrigo Boito - London Symphony Orchestra, Julius Rudel, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, John McCarthy, Norman Treigle, Plácido Domingo, Montserrat Cabeallé
a conversation at cross-purposes
the couple
of Faust and
Mefistofele
sunders irretrievably
with celestial chorus
assist
the whistles are strange
more sound-effect than music part
String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51 #2 - Johannes Brahms - Budapest Quartet
figures pass through the tonalities they engender
all of them must be
active
or at least
under only temporarily delayed consideration
no figure will let you forget it for long
memories do crowd in
desperately
Eugene Onegin, Act III - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and Chorus, Boris Khiakin, Yevgeniy Belov, Sergei Lemeshev, Galina Vishnevskaya, Larisa Avdeyeva, Valentina Petrova, Yevgeniya Verbitskaya, Ivan Petrov, Andrey Sokolov, Igor Mikhaylov
high society ball
spectacle of our proud depravity
full employment
for costumers
conspicuous opulence
we sing in extensive
dissertations
with footnotes
Piano Piece in E Major - Ethel Smyth - Liana Serbescu
music box figures
dance when their crank is turned
Scheherezade - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
will open sternly
crib a few measures from Mendelssohn
then the
violin will work its magic
this is one of the recordings my mom had when I was a kid
it got played
a lot
Sea Pieces: Song, Op. 25 #5 - Edward MacDowell - Fred Karpoff
a bit of the shanty to it
but cleaned up considerable for polite company
4 Preludes, Op. 37 - Alexander Scriabin - Michael Ponti
sizeable as Scriabin Preludes go
that last one is determined to avoid
meeting its key
3 Klavierstücke, Op. 11 - Arnold Schoenberg - Paul Jacobs
a triumph of specificity
In Session at The Tintinabulary
July 7, 2024
Creation - Keith Eisenbrey
I venture into the second year of this discipline, writing weekly arrangements of the tunes found in an 1846 shape-note song-book
Postscripts
Drops
Keith Eisenbrey 19: 2021
Études d'exécution imminent - Acknowledgments
Rounds for Aaron
(2021)
Rungs for Neal (2021)
The Acknowledgements form the last segment of my large-scale project "Études d'exécution imminent", which might be subtitled "studies in compositional listening".
Prior volumes are available at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com
All are free for download.
Skaldmud's Doodle Gallery
listening journal doodles from 2023
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