Playlist

Recorded

April 12, 2016
Symphony in D minor, Op. 120 (#4) - Schumann - Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

An exuberance spills out and over, washing the countryside. As we pick up the pieces we civilize and in civilizing are civilized. This isn't my favorite recording of this piece, but Klemperer does pick up on some of the work's strangeness, wearing its awkward moments gracelessly but exactly, like an ill-fitting suit of clothes.

Concert Fantasy - Rimsky-Korsakov - Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg, Louis de Froment, Aaron Rosand

The best part of the piece is toward the end where a clarinet finally gives the solo violin some push back. Otherwise it's vapid and dull, like sitting through somebody else's vacation slides.

Klarinettenquintet in B minor, Op. 115 - Brahms - Amadeus Quartet, Karl Leister

Lush, overgrown tendrils of counterpoint have insinuated themselves into every crevice. Each phrase is a complex of threads and asides, no single voice speaking a whole thing entirely. The variations that finish it open the door at last to some fresh air.

April 14, 2016

Mamie Smith

Destimido - Grupo Bahianainho [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

The rhythmic flexibility in play (which is prodigious) is different in flavor but not in degree to, say, a late Beethoven Sonata in Schnabel's reading, or a Chopin Nocturne in Cortot's. Robustly anti-metronomic.

Frankie Blues - Mamie Smith [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

Another, brilliant, take on the great American mythopoetic saga: the romantic betrayal between Frankie and Johnnie.

Fat Meat and Greens - Jelly Roll Morton [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

There is a bluesiness about the swing that is echoed in his bendy attitude toward pitch and touch, offering another way to think about the reflection of the horizontal upon the vertical: meter to (something like) intonation, rather than pitch set to pitch set.

Violin Concerto in D - Stravinsky - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, Isaac Stern

Khachaturian

Moving, but not going. Circulating, spiraling to get back - spinning wheels within spinning wheels. Each seeming repetition transformed, each nearly familiar angle re-configured.

Concerto - Khachaturian - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, Dickran Atamian

I wasn't familiar with this piece going in, and it started by reminding me of Bartok, but without the astringency. It certainly is shamelessly Lisztian. I ended up kind of digging the keyboard writing, especially when he piled on as many moving parts at once as he could, like juggling snakes and kittens.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 11, 2016
Gradus 288 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

We now have a fourth pitch, as Neal introduces G natural (the highest one), joined by a lowish E for the 2nd rung.

Playlist

Live

January 8, 2016
Seattle Composers' Salon
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Ivan Arteaga

Ivan Arteaga

Reed voice human voice inside each outside each voice being outside through each voice being inside enclosure through each voice being outside voice's disclosure - holding outside, birthing inside.

Patrick O'Keefe - Three Bagatelles

The first one was done before I got a bead on it, but the second was really pretty. I liked the way the harmonies of the third jostled each other, shoulder contra shoulder, not unfriendly.

Amy Denio

Best title of the night, possibly of the year: Recipe for Disaster. I am still and always in awe at how effortlessly Amy seems to generate good feelings in everything she does. How can one not smile? She has an easy comfort with what I can only call "song-ness", music consists of a bed of rhythm and a play of tune. The joy is in the details.

Keith Eisenbrey (with Banned Rehearsal)  - Tambourine Quintet (or Banned Rehearsal 901 160108) - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

I was quite gratified both by how easily my colleagues got into it, and by the response. This (and the whole evening) is an example why I love the Seattle music scene.

Recorded

Alfred Cortot

January 3, 2016
Ballade in A-flat Major, op. 47 - Chopin - Alfred Cortot

The first eight bars comprise four gestures, each in a distinct register. It also divides neatly in two, each half a question and answer, the latter like an echo of the first. Then four bars, two big, two little. Echo's echo. Got that straight? Good thing, because the ground begins to shift something ferocious.

Symphony in D minor, op. 120 (#4) - Schumann - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

Schwarz hears this differently than I do, his reading is leisurely, dreamy, and a bit heavy, with a tendency to broaden and luxuriate in a warm glow, rather than to quicken, ignite. This works pretty well for the opening, circling in the dark to an inner light, but never really gets its get-up-and-go up and gone.

Sonata in F Major op. 99 - Brahms - Gregor Piatigorsky, Artur Rubinstein

I love those low cello double stops toward the end of the first movement, an anchor in the bottom of the sea pulled by an unseen ship high above.

January 5, 2016
My Little Zulu Babe - Williams and Walker [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Fascinating, but uncomfortable to listen to in almost every way imaginable.

The Invisible City of Kitezh (Suite) - Rimsky-Korsakov - Philharmonia Hungarica, Richard Kapp

A sound track drifting free of its film.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 4, 2016
Gradus 281 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Three simultaneities open, equivocally similar, identically uncertain. Coherence is a process of connecting presence to memory. When we hit bottom the summit re-emerges.

Playlist

Live

February 12, 2015
Stuart Dempster, Lori Goldston, Jessika Kenney
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

The stuff of music is primitive and absolute only if we, or it, is not accelerating in a relevant space. Here our listening ears are like a camera in a tracking shot, following these sounds as they travel through time and timbre and tune - only seeming stillness.

Recorded

February 7, 2015
Sonata in F Op. 24 - Beethoven - Itzhak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy

A realm explored: the space between what counts as tuneful and what doesn't.

Nocturne in F op. 15 #4 - Chopin - Alfred Cortot

Parts are inside and parts are outside, mismatched just so.

February 8, 2015
Symphony in B-flat (#1) - Schumann - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan

From within the music as it goes about its symphonic business emerges sudden glory, or revery.

Missa Solennis - Liszt - Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Chorus of the Hungarian Radio and Television, Janos Ferencsik, Veronika Kincses, Klara Takacs, Gyorgy Korondy, Jozsef Gregor

Utterance is unpacked methodically, stepwise - heaven compelled in discipline.

Quartet in B-flat Op. 67 - Brahms - Budapest Quartet

Seems balanced, but nothing ever quite finishes - new thoughts spill in mid-syllable. The material shifts itself within its meter as though it were not quite comfortable in its chair.

February 10, 2015
Waltz in f minor - Scriabin - Michael Ponti

Ever so microscopically aloft, the ground dropping out from beneath.

Symphonic Suite (Symphony) #2 "Antar" op. 9 - Rimsky-Korsakov - Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Neemi Järvi

Music of event and sequence. And then, and then, and then.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 8, 2015
Franciscan 150208
Franciscan 150208 folded
Franciscan 150208 folded rubbed  - Keith Eisenbrey

Improvising on nylon string acoustic guiatar.

February 9, 2015
Gradus 259 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Neal moves to C-sharp, the third pitch-class - for those who are counting.

Playlist

Recorded

December 23, 2014

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York - 1983

Symphony in C Op. 32 - Rimsky-Korsakov - Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järve

Strings of noodled notes for cumulations of combinations. Old-fashioned contrapuntal framework, all motives have clear provenance, no idea not plain to the ear. If the Italian sun were ice.

Lyric Suite - Grieg - Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz

Operatic or cinematic scenes, always something is hidden. The music it is is never quite the music played. Empty and dark at the center, veering to the side.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

December 22, 2014
Banned Telepath 26 141222 Seattle - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosàly-Meyer
Banned Telepath 26 141222 Somerville - Aaron Keyt
Banned Rehearsal 876 141222 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosàly-Meyer

Once again we improvise through the telepathic night.