"August [1837] - Regatta"
George Cruikshank - from The Comic Almanack an Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humorous Poetry, Quips and Oddities, First Series, 1835-1843
Texts
Recorded
February 15, 2025
Black/Noise I - Benjamin Boretz [from Open Space 33]
mineral veins
transformed
under extreme pressure
affinity
with One sessions
the shapely singularities of objects
squashed beyond flat
implosioned
remains suppressed
composition
can be a process
through which
we tweeze
illumination
out of inchoate anxieties
quests
questions
queries
concerns
puzzlements in
general
music can pose as a question
but can it pose one?
I imagine
I must have heard Black/Noise I
by the time I was
working on this
which comes across
in this context
as an
episode
of working out concerns
it had raised
when I recorded this piece a few years ago
the particular concerns I
had
back in the day
were no longer
the concerns I had
at the more recent time ago
so
the resulting
performance
is vastly different
asking a different question
of the same score
February 16, 2025
Daffodils, my blondines - Christian Asplund [from Viola]
as though
heard with the bow
the sound
the viola hears
in its own skull
an interval
is an exploitable potential
oblique book
bulbous
observe the obverse
welcome to the obverse
Selections from Music for Wallace - Aaron Keyt [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, January 5, 2018]
mulling nigh imponderables
twisting thoughts
back around
to
observe
their objectivity
locked in place
they are unstable
sound plates
depending
free to turn
or spin
wander
within their geometry
Banned Telepath 99 South - Steve Kennedy [March 29, 2023]
sounds like blowing past a tautly pulled blade of grass
anybody's oboe
perhaps balloon squeal
or origami reed making
admirably disinterested in social value
Madrigals, Book IV: Luci serene e chiare - Claudio Monteverdi - Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Rossana Bertini, Claudio Cavina, Giuseppe Maletto, Marcello Vargetto, Cristina Miatello
a poem proceeds
with what it says
a music
says nothing
with what
does it proceed?
it can ride along
with what the poem says
and can bend the poem
to what the music does
as it proceeds
Die mit tränen säen, SWV 378 - Heinrich Schütz - Capella Augustana
this music sets its text
within a contemplation of it
looking
through its window
an illumination
Praeambulum in A minor, BuxWV 158 - Dieterich Buxtehude - Simone Stella
a tour
of the architecture
of a tonality
Premier livre de clavecin: Triosieme Ordre (ut) : L'Espagnolete. D'une legerete moderee - François Couperin - Kenneth Gilbert
a hint of Carmen's flirt song in outline
Sinfonia in F minor, BWV 795 - Johann Sebastian Bach - Edith Picht-Axenfeld
figures are functional building parts
bricks brackets bracing
lyrical spaces
composed for easy conversation
and lively games
Keyboard Sonata in B Major, Kk. 262 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder
modulates inside out
and suddenly
Symphony in C Major, K. 425(425) "Linzer" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Academy of Ancient Music, Jaap Schroder, Christopher Hogwood
intro
grandiose awesome
1
busy with events
and visitors
public and private
spaces
2
pampered and padded
intrigue and whispers
in the corridors
trepidation
3
dance of the social graces
family business transacted
4
negotiations in earnest
demands and concessions
the tonality
is on the move
a living thing
a key
is the processes
of its establishment
String Quartet in E Major, Op. 54 #3 - Franz Joseph Haydn - Endellion Quartet
a conversation over cards
between plays
family wagers
does pleasure
in the sensible image of polite civilization
as
persists here
blind us
to the effort and suffering
required
to have supported that polite civilization
and
what of our
current civilization
that professes to treasure this music?
our idiosyncratic private museums and libraries
curated per our whims
over time
we say we admire fine workmanship
can we do so
regardless
of
the cultural horrors it
(the workmanship)
graced?
that is
is there value
or innocent pleasure
in the intricacy of
cultural thought
as expressed
or
are we irreversibly
complicit?
or
does our understanding
such as we aspire to
of cultural thought over time
assist our edification?
that first chord* is darkly balanced
last sung notes of phrases
that drop into sudden voids
*Tristanesque?
Etudes de concert d'après les Caprices de Paganini pour le pianoforte, Op. 10 #5. Etude in B Minor, moto perpetuo - Robert Schumann - Eric Le Sage
the meter
is in negotiation among the figures
they'll figure it out tomorrow for sure
Prelude in D Major, Op. 28 #5 - Frédéric Chopin - Garrick Ohlsson
ripples in a duck pond
Slavonic Dance in C Major, Op. 46 #1 - Antonín Dvořák - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, John Farrer
National Geographic nationalism
Prelude in B Major, Op. 22 #3 - Alexander Scriabin - Dmitri Alexeev
floating keyward without hurry
Preludes Book 2: Les tierces alternées - Claude Debussy - Paul Jacobs
the title accurately describes something about the piece
that has
nothing to do with how it goes
or what it might be imagined as
depicting
accurate but not evocative
Fon Fon - Ernesto Nazareth - Marcelo Bratke
steamship era nationalism
Old Man River - Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman [from Really The Blues]
radio era nationalism
nostalgic and sentimental
Bing sells it
weirdly
When a Woman Loves a Man - Billie Holiday [from Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia]
uses more notes than it sounds like she does
Study No. 9, The Anti-Abolitionist Riots (1938) - Charles Ives - Charles Ives [from Charles Ives Plays Charles Ives]
go check in on Uncle Charles will you
still running into stuff on his piano
listen to nothing happening
as the world blunders on behind it
be patient
competitive radical null meaning
in a sequence
of singularly
articulated sounds
Retrospection - Duke Ellington [from Piano Reflections]
the deep science of chord voicing
Not Fade Away - Buddy Holly and The Crickets [from The Chirping Crickets]
drum sound (boxes)
in back of Paul Simons mind for Cecilia?
Variations on a Theme by Hindemith - William Walton - Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell
civilized
modernism
and cosmopolitan
radio ready
varied to please
and amaze
not to inquire
or
discover
showcase the sections
the musicians will love you for it
costume changes
motives on sleeves
after Bartoks' Concerto for Orchestra
a commission fulfillment
piece
harp included!
gimmick last chord
Ain't Nothin' Like The Real Thing - Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
long distance conversation
across the width of a microphone
Harmony - Elton John [from Bennie and The Jets b/w Harmony]
vastly orchestrated
for anthemic expanse
with plenty of vinyl
surface noise for the aficionados
cheesy sound
throughout his career
the man with the leisure suit voice
anthem
of the Me Decade
Waitin' On The Good Life To Come - Merle Haggard, Leona Williams [a Rescued Record]
a distinctly rock-tinged guitar sound
right there in an echt-country
song
Sonata in 2 Movements - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle, February 7, 2004]
where music comes apart
and an imp to reassemble
as it
happens
floating gives way
in places
at my most pianistic
in the recognized
Scriabinesque
sense
Cave of Tidal Sound - Judith Exley [from Open Space 16]
distressingly close to some
and worriedly distant from the greater part
of it
an N-scape
that is not about us
nor of us
swells upon a gravel strand
Stuart Dempster Retirement Jam (continued) - University of Washington Contemporary Improvisation Group Alumni [recorded at The University of Washington, June 20, 1998]
catch up
chatting and gossiping
Stu has temporarily vanished
Peace Piece - Bill Evans - Tom Baker [from Sounding The Curve]
a linear mark
upon a ground
they part
with a mutual curtsy
Dear S. - Brian Cobb - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded live at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, June 5, 2010]
time floats in this music
A Weird Little Interlude - S. Eric Scribner [from Odds and Ends]
a flash spontaneous performance
Gradus 328 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [February 19, 2018]
small big
(to match the size of critter
that might make such a
sound)
high low
(to match where pitch seems to reside
in our vocal
mechanism
when we vocalize)
cyclic bands of pitch classes
(might
more or less
match
certain acoustic properties)
(might not)
allow pitch-class syntax
which
allows certain species
of attributable coherence
back front
(of harp from the audience
on a typical grand piano
arrangement)
(backwards on clavichord)
(or square piano)
traditional cyclicity
is designed into the interface
left right
(of keyboard
from the bench)
[beachheads
on the cultural theater of operations
one must defend
ones offensiveness
along with everyone else]
we create a device
that makes a sound
and
we imagine
an object
that makes a sound
the match
between device
and sound made by device
is of a
different ontological status
than the match
between the object
(the imagined object)
we imagine to have made some sound or
other
a showroom of such imagined objects
You Tell Her, I Stutter - Cotton Pickers [form That Devilin' Tune]
parts of the costume
stick out all over
gaudy
to make a stage impact
The Butcher's Boy - Buell Kazee [from The Anthology of American Folk Music]
the notion in these states
that authentic folk music
was to be
found
away form urban environments
farm country
Appalachia
the South in general:
a Northeastern urban denigration
of the imputedly unlettered
by
the aspirationally lettered
Sinfonia in C minor - Harold Shapero - Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose
figuration groups
self absorbed
on the surface
it sounds like film music
but
it clearly has
its own problems to deal with
earns its moments
in ways that music for film
can't allow to
itself
overture shaped
In The Still of the Night - Charlie Parker [from The Cole Porter Songbook]
studio professionalism
meets another planet
the original song
presented as
"the song"
and their
orchestra
an implanted weirdness
awkward arrangement
short line quatrain
first three lines
identical
fourth line
creates the sitch
which
is all there is
sample sized
It Won't Be Long - The Beatles [from With the Beatles]
till I belong
it won't be long
old timey word play
The Unicorn - The Irish Rovers [a Rescued Record]
I was quite taken by this song
back before I was 10
a sucker for
clever doggerel
all the animals
on the Rock Island Ark Line
Speak To Me - Pink Floyd [from The Dark Side of The Moon]
into the bedlam void
Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) - Bob Dylan [from Biograph]
Americana folk fan fiction
artsy indulgence
JB KE SJ DS 830601 (side 2) - Jill Borner, Keith Eisenbrey, Sarah Johnson, Dan Sedia
sound appears as a fact out there
for observation
though
from a certain perspective
both it
and the out there
in which
it
is
are all
projections
internally generated images
it appears
as an object
in the same world
as the
visible
we construct
an out there
that
is filled
with
stimulation
of all the sorts
that we can imagine
image
likeness
representation
idol
icon
in Their image
likeness
in Their representation
Their idol
or icon
not
that we resemble Them
but
that
we are a creation
within the image of Them
Their clay creature
I wonder
if They
are as surprised
by us
as we are
by Them
In Session at The Tintinabulary
February 16, 2025
Chester - Keith Eisenbrey
February 17, 2025
Gradus 409 - Neal Kosály-Meyer
buddy system
every action
brings a partner
independent explorations
slow tender embrace
the dawn of rhyme
moment to moment flow
Postscripts
Drops
My 16 Sinfonias were composed, in part, in order to discover ways in which they might sing themselves differently on different keyboard instruments. I offer them here as performed on piano. The recordings were made at my home in 2023 and 2024.
recordings of my compositions (and more!) can be found at keitheisenbrey.bandcamp.com - free to download or stream
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