Playlist

Preface

"In the musical universe of one, the musical universe I inhabit within the musical spaces I share with you, with everyone, I don't assume to know what you or they might hear or what you or they might say to describe what you each hear; nor do I assume to know whether my experience might resemble yours nor whether what I say to express my experience might relate to what you would say; but still we might listen together and still I will be interested in speaking to you of what I hear, and of hearing from you what you might say of what you hear."

- Benjamin Boretz "in the musical universe of one"  from "inside in . . . / . . . outside out" Open Space Publications, 2020

Texts

Streaming

June 13, 2021

Kin of the Moon (Heather Bentley, Kaley Lynn Eaton Leanna Keith)
at the Royal Room

dark math
high order polyrhythmic
three body problem 

ancestor worship

nice keys Kaley! 

where beat drops
there drops beat 

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/.

June 13, 2021

Sovan (Tomo Nakayama, Jeramy Koepping)

subsurface
ocean swells
smoothly suspirant
warm wash
cushioned
embrace
folded in 

birds and rivulets
gurgle peace
without us 

the lake shore has always lapped

June 15, 2021

John Teske - Any Ensemble
Greg Campbell, percussion; Haley Freedlund, trombone; Noel Kennon, viola; John Teske, double bass; Neil Welch, saxophone

swell
ad;sr
prelude
trashfire
intonations:
(threadshift
by the fucking neck
bone flute
mauler
libera me
brain slap
klaxon wail
papercut butterflies
blood on the hearth
death rattle)

any ensemble

as name of ensemble
into which
anyone might be called
the name
remains constant
while the players
flow through 

also
anybody plays
the same music
and
what isn't the same
about
what they play
is the them
of what they play
as expressed
by the score
that anybody plays 

much like any institutional orchestra
even the board
is essentially
an any board
a frame
through which
is expressed
any player 

I have heard other groups assembled
play these
at other times
filling a set of shapes
with their expression
of themselves
expressing the score(s) 

Recorded

June 13, 2021

Sonata in G minor, Kk. 121 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

relatedness through common tones
and hierarchically organized substructures of relatedness

Sonata in E-flat Major, Wq. 52/1 - Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach - Miklos Spanyi

the person of the Sonata
kindly
humorous
empathetic
understanding
wondering 

quest
exerts
explores 

Apollo et Hyacinth, Act III - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg, Leopold Hager, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Arleen Auger, Edith Mathis, Cornelia Wulkopf, Hanna Schwarz, Salzburger Kammerchor, Rupert Huber

projection of passions
onto placard pose
in lifelike sequence 

drama animated by the series of surviving production stills
vocal melismatic cadenza
wherein the character's singer
ornately underlines
the artificiality
of the whole endeavor 

recitative
the characters negotiate
duet
they come to an arrangement 

the lilac leaves are playing a game with raindrops

Symphony in C Major (#97) - Franz Joseph Haydn - Austro Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer

orchestration
as staging
and peopling
a drama
and pulling us in
to supply
the plot 

an ordered village life
living itself
within a tonal scheme
that interpermeates them 

pupils twiddle their thumbs
we are so polite
and pretty
old folks went to bed
time to party

June 15, 2021

Sonata in D Major, Op. 28 "Pastorale" - Ludwig van Beethoven - Artur Schnabel

I have been reading through this very sonata this week in my morning practice. 

1st movement is generous
with not moving along so quickly
anywhere in particular 

walking along
with no one else
not headed
anywhere
one imagines
stopping to take pictures

Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 80 #4 - Franz Schubert - Murray Perahia

made of discrete and balanced parts
one is certain of where one is
within a phrase or figure
they all complete themselves

Sonata in A-flat Major (#8) - Johann Nepomuk Hummel - Constance Keene

charmed I'm sure

June 16, 2021

Impromptu in A-flat Major, Op. 29 - Frédéric Chopin - Artur Rubinstein

life here
is less cut and dried
volubly finessed

Fantasien, Op. 116 - Johannes Brahms - Walter Gieseking

offsets
serial
planar
angular 

Beethoven fights his keys
Brahms lets them melt in his hands

Symphony in B-flat Major - Alexander Zemlinsky - Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Edgar Selpenbusch

1
we sit back
in our club chairs
to talk of mighty deeds
and past loves
Imperial splendor
and youth's struggles
centennial retrospective
Europe bestrides the world 

2
old figures
in newer clothes
already out of fashion
twice over
home for aging sensualists 

3
intrigues
domestic and dark
a storyteller
lost in memory land 

4
the decadent decrepitude of Romanticisim
lost in fairy tales and lushly fronded gardens
cramped quarters

[from my journal of October 5, 2004:
1 opens with something like a Dvorakian fantasy feel shades of Bruckner
2 Schumannian coda to the Scherzo
3 chorale from Wagner
4 a set of varations?]

June 17, 2021

Symphony in C minor, Op.29 (#2) - Alexander Scriabin - Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt, Eliahu Inbal

oh what a difference
where places are places
howsoever fragile

if it has a weakness
it is that the texture is overdense for his orchestrational abilities
but that might be the recording
his thin textures are magical
opening of 2 especially
2 and 3 strong throughout
an intelligent ear
for the effect of tonality
and of the parts that make it up

In Session at the Tintinabulary

June 14, 2021

Banned Rehearsal 1028 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

Keith Eisenbrey · Banned Rehearsal 1028 210614

We gathered on the porch on a lovely evening and made some sound.

Postscripts

::Consult the Oracle

29 house clash companies shout has

no sign of years ago grill had but as

teddy buying the glass but nothing you

Reality Check::

the corridor

in tinted eyes

one day the osprey

Playlist

Live

March 22, 2014
Any Ensemble
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Topology - Andrew Smith

A tetrapuntal projection of shaped space. In the corners in front of us two electric guitars played repeated single tones in something like cross rhythms of mutually adjusted independence. Over the course of the hour they changed pitch and tempo 20 times or so, at more or less coordinated points, each time taking a moment to reorient their attitude to each other, as people deep in conversation do. In the corners behind us two electric guitars played long tones without distinct attack points, not constant, but a continually renewed presence, like spillover ambience from the front. What was on the left was cloven from what was on the right. What was in front was functionally distinct from what was in the back. As the harmonies and relative tempo structures shifted over time, this sonographic space warped, thickened, blossomed, rippled, tilted, quivered. A peripatetic violist appeared here, aimed this way, now here aimed that way. The actual fact of his physical relation to any of us at any particular time was not nearly so precise as his location within the evoked space in sound. Blown away.

Topographies - John Teske

Sounds are individuals within populations. Long tones tend away from emphasizing their initiation, pointing toward their respective apogeal episodes. Short tones bloop and pop in the randomish rhythm of volcanic mudpots, or fields of spurting geoducks. Ship masts at harbor rock in slow motion. Rational value is void at water's edge.

Recorded

March 16, 2014
Symphony avec orgue - Camille Saint-Saëns - Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit

Or: Farmer Hogget ascends to heaven.

From the middle of the 19th through the early part of the 20th centuries the symphony was often a vehicle for nationalist aspiration. Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Franck, and the later generation of Sibelius, Nielsen, Elgar, and hosts of others (each with copious asterisks) were playing to pride of country. It is this notion of what a symphony is about that lends such overwrought nostalgia to Rachmaninov, such naïve pathos to the later American symphonists such as Hanson, Copland, and Diamond, and such a sharp satirical thrust to Shostakovich. So what exactly is so French about Saint-Saëns' 3rd? I would point to the graceful melodic lines that spread over the meter - it may be 'in four' or 'in three' but it is the whole phrase that is the building block.

In Nature's Realm - Antonin Dvořák - London Symphony Orchestra, István Kertész
Graduale 'Christus factus est pro nobis' - Anton Bruckner - Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum

March 17, 2014
Quartet in A - Max Reger - Reger Quartet

As much contrapuntal clockwork ferocity as can be crammed into the space allotted. So tightly wound it seems to fall apart from the inside.

Pohjola's Daughter - Jean Sibelius - London Symphony Orchestra - Robert Kajanus

After a clear, directly linear opening that moves from dark to light, the narrative becomes obscure and convoluted. Love the ending. Kajanus owns this stuff.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 17, 2014
Gradus 241 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

First part: holding a resonance together long enough to cause the transformation of its innards.
Second part: making up for the minimally thicker global texture by slowing and thinning the presentation. Moving into thinking about the colors of specific combinations of notes and how those colors shift, and away from the more sensually lush lofting of resonant results.

Upcoming

 

April 12, 2014 - 8 PM 

A Cat's Life Returns Again - a recital by Keith Eisenbrey, piano, with special guest Olivia Sterne, narrator

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Attitude - Doug Palmer

Greek Nickel 2 - J. K. Randall

Sonata (2012) - Aaron Keyt

A Cat's Life, a little opera for solo piano (1990) - Keith Eisenbrey

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Playlist

Live

May 16, 2013
Any Ensemble
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
John Teske, Paul Kikuchi, Alex Guy, Kate Olson, Jessie Polin, Natalie Mai Hall

On stage, front, as a prelude, a vertically maximized microphone stand bearing two globuloid microphones in vertically opposed attitude, twisted from each other. A recording device lounges on the lone chair. The performers dis-assemble off-stage, three on the left and four on the right, along the windows. On the left from the back: cello, oboe, double-bass. On the right from the front: bass clarinet, drums, violin, bassoon.

PK: Given the distance between them, to join is a choice not a given. Joining is often chosen. JT: Circling so that motionless twists back into. PK: Melodic in a lyric space, without the usual rhetorics of dramatic or conversational continuities. JT: Slow, then quivery. AG: Nervous underpinnings. KO: Chorale with drummy bit.

Recorded

May 14, 2013
Banned Couple 13 - Banned Rehearsal

Rattle of a can packed tight and dried.

May 15, 2013
Banned Couple 14 - Banned Rehearsal

A large room fit into a small room.

In Session at The Tintinabulary
May 13, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 836 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

Playlist

Live

November 17, 2012
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Any Ensemble (Greg Campbell, Jacob Zimmerman, John Teske, Natalie Mai Hall, Neil Welch, Paul Kikuchi)

get up

pre-be-bop saxes

jungle high

def slow

scan texture up

down texture back

forth texture in

out at

precisely bare

limb limned

Recorded

November 20, 2012
Birdbrain - Ginsberg - The Gluons

Ginsberg

Casting aspersions widely, hoping something will stick. A list of random social atrocities all attributed to a stand-in bad guy, a them. Not among his strongest work.









Chain 2- Lutoslawski - BBC Symphony Orchestra, Witold Lutoslawski, Anne-Sophie-Mutter 

So what is wrong with putting on a good show? Easy to follow, completely entertaining, brightly colored. Here: no new ground is broken, nothing explored that wasn't known. The given task was fulfilled, music was made, business was duly transacted, we depart unmoved.

Banned Rehearsal 242 - (December 1990, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)

Smallish sounds closely regarded. Room roar present. Becoming slow and sleepy to the breathing harmony of harmonica breathing sleepy slow. (PP - drumroll!). A study in singularities. Snare buzz roll interrupted by funmaker percussion. Big Crescendo up to A Big Moment: Grand Pause: Loud! Radio sound smeared with slathered sonic paint.

Banned Rehearsal 587 (recording by Pete Comley) - (October 2000, Peter Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Isabel Kosály-Meyer, Neal Meyer)

Slow bell noodles glued with sax. Tub bass in particular.

November 21, 2012
Gradus 84 - Neal Meyer

An airplane dopplers over between events.

BF Vocals and Percussion Chorus - Eisenbrey

The density of the percussion chorus begins to produce a hint of an image of a choral sound, so that the ear is beguiled into thinking there is a touch of the vocal in the mix even when there isn't.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

November 19, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 825 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt

Upcoming

Saturday May 4, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey and Neal Meyer at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Music for solo piano
Eisenbrey: Welcome to my planet. I come in peace.
Meyer: Cage - Solo for Piano