Preface
"One should recognize that all "schools of thought" are relative to interests, and not born out of theoretical objectivity - in fact, theoretical objectivity is rather to be skeptically viewed as perhaps irrelevant to the reason for which one thinks - namely, to deal with problems of unclarity or insecurity in one's identity or one's intuition or one's perception or one's motivation or one's "program" for activity or behavior or interbehavior. "Objectivity" is therefore without a subject or a purpose and of all modes of thought most prone to self-referential irrelevance. (You could argue that a "field" consisting of "objective" thinking develops its own internal energies; but that is precisely what unmasks such a "field" as being relevant only to its own internal economy - an analysis which I believe would not really be congenial to the practitioners of most such fields.)"
Texts
Streaming
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/.
October 31, 2020
Melia Watras & Michael Jinsoo Lim
gently archaic
in the manner that J.K. Randall's Troubador songs are
but not reaching quite so many centuries back
perhaps Praetorius at times
or Debussy at others
occasional modestly extended techniques in playful play
archaic but with modern
commentary
it reminds me how much I love solo strings
a string player is so
closely entwined
their body and the instrument's body
intervulnerable
in some modern jazz pieces
post bebop
the
ritornella can be
a sequence of unison or heterophonic rhythms
angular in pitch contour and
metrical thrust
very like old courtly dance
some of this is
very like that
November 1, 2020
Angelique Poteat & Artemisia Winds
Josiah Boothby, Ryan Hare, Angelique Poteat
Melisma - Angelique Poteat
Sound, Flight, Touch - Josiah Boothby
Under the Sun - Angelique Poteat
Tales for Three - Ryan Hare
Harkening - Ryan Hare
You Are Home - Angelique Poteat
dressed up for formal presentation
sit down concert style music relies on and benefits from close inspection
in turn
allowing a liberty to indulge in fine
distinctions
it is also
for better or worse
the formality with which I am
personally familiar
and in which I have been schooled
and in which I find myself
all too easily indulging
and in which
consequently I am these days
more and more leery
distrustful
the formality of it is rooted
in academic
new-music-program
presentation ready
c.v. enhancing
institutionalism
perhaps inescapably
without
regard to the qualities of the music as itself
but this particular streaming presentation isn't being had within that milieu
so how might a musical thought
requiring for its optimal reception
the kind of close attention
that is
on the
best occasions
at least available
in that cloistered academic environment
operate now
in this new world?
Recorded
Selections from Die Meistersinger: Prelude to Act III, Dance of the Apprentices, Entrance of the Meistersingers - Richard Wagner - Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
trope of the Liszt Wagner camp:
start dark slow and mysterious
echo back
the hush
the dark
the stillness insisted upon
to hear this
in the space it is composed for
rather dark for a comedy though
those are some well-behaved apprentices
so happy to be German Villagers
and here comes the glorious vanity of man
on parade
pomping and strutting
Boris Godunov, Act I, Scene II - (1872 version) - Modeste Mussorgsky - Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow, Martti Talvela, Leonard Mroz, Nicolai Gedda, Bozena Kinasz, Andrzej Hiolski, Aage Haugland, Halina Lukomska, Polish Radio Chorus of Krakow, Boys Chorus from the Krakow Philharmonic Chorus
it is dark outside
but bright and cheery in here
uh oh
men's voices laughing
always:
trouble will follow
and a dance not so far out from parts of Petrushka
it is hard to be happy in Moskva
outside of this story
of this stage
in the outside
of the image of this music
abides an oppressive expanse of dark silence
a wilderness of nothing for days and days around
many words are spilt in peril
this main melody (the first one)
seems to have a prior existence
of which this is only a series of clever allusions
My Home - Antonín Dvořák - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vaclav Neumann
our peasants are happier than your peasants
Nationalism signified by
an accent of dance
sentence structure
phonemic patterning
melodic slant
November 1, 2020
Sextet in D minor, Op. 70 "Souvenir de Florence" - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Copenhagen String Quartet, F. Christensen, I. Geisler
Figuration in classical form arose as a means of articulating fine distinctions of harmony within segments of frames.
In Romantic neo-classical
usage this aspect of figuration is partly subsumed to its use as prolongation of melody,
and thus the theme was born
and melody found it had arisen
within a kind of
prison
its roles laid out in books.
1st theme should be X
2nd theme should be Y
etc.
The face of the music is turned toward the
audience rather than toward within the circle of players. They are doing this
for us,
then for them.
The later movements
especially when they thin out
are
playful -
a welcome relief
leave room for national character
it's all the rage
big tune payoff shot
Klavierstücke, Op. 119 - Johannes Brahms - Julius Katchen
The struggle anent the barline is waged on all fronts available.
Davidsbundler in
the Modern World
fighting the old fight
begins in mid-swoon Hollywood scene of mad passion
wanders into innocent childhood dreamy land
sugar plums and all
got the Tchaikovsky model on his noggin
his piano writing here is far more engaging than in any concerto of Tchaikovsky's or Rachmaninov's, but engaging is subtle and won't get you far in Romantic Piano Concerto Land.
he is of that Land though a
natural citizen
and not a slouch of one either
Happy Ending Glory Land
November 2, 2020
You Been a Good Old Wagon - Len Spencer [from Allen Lowe's Turn Me Loose White Man]
an edifying reminder of just how blatant the racist caricatures really were
Valsette - Zoltán Kodály - Jenö Jandó
the sense of a waltzy 3 emerges gently
2 vanishes
but when?
November 3, 2020
Le Roi de etoiles - Igor Stravinsky - Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Riccardo Chailly
yes
this is an alien mind
sit down
I'm talking
Reflection Rag - Scott Joplin - William Albright
Life here is charming and controlled.
All the phrases are 4 barred, because America
isn't fancy that way
we like triadic harmonies
deal wid it
Three Fantastic Dances - Dmitri Shostakovich - Dmitri Shostakovich
three little ironical knots
James Alley Blues - Richard Rabbit Brown [from Allen Lowe's Really The Blues]
such a light touch!
rather grim message though
November 5, 2020
Moses und Aron, Act I - Arnold Schoenberg - Sinfonieorchester des Osterreichischen Rundfunks, Michael Gielen, Gunter Reich, Louis Devos, Eva Csapo, Elfriede Obrowsky, Roger Lucas, Richard Salter, Ladislav Illavsky, Werner Mann, Maria Muhlbacher, Elisabeth Wagner, Helga Chlup, Elisabeth Brommel, Alfred Winkler, Franz Handlos, Chor des Osterreichischen Rundfunks, Wiener Sängerknaben
not a friendly bush
the corporate voice of God
as against Moses' Sprechstimme
as against Aron's blank stone face tenor
translating 3rd hand revelations 3rd hand
a number opera
anti-Wagner
crowd of God
crowd of the
people
a dense onslaught of voices contending
In Session at the Tintinabulary
November 2, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 1013 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer
Anna and Neal, improvising, phoned in from Outpost Lake City. I put the receiving phone in a large tin can and mic'd it separately. Karen and I improvised around it at the Tintinabulary.
Postscripts
