aworks :: "new" american classical music

Aworks iPhone list

1 SQ 2. Philip Glass
2 Bad Vibrations. Psychedelic Horseshit
3 the Cuban piece by Copland as played four hands by McCabe and other hands
4 Stork and Owl. Tv on the Radio
5 some misc. Dutch baroque CD

Blog posted here.

Metamorphosis 3 (1988). Philip Glass

Via Christopher Lewis/NewHarpsichord, Philip Glass as played on harpsichord -- this sounds better than I might have thought:

aworks ordered list :: top five for the day /couples music/

1. Summertime. Jim Hall and Pat Metheny
2. My Little Brown Book. Duke Ellington and John Coltrane
3. The Blessing. John Coltrane and Don Cherry
4. You Never Know. Jeff Beck
5. A Hudson Cycle (Rival Consoles RMX). Nico Muhly

Hall/Metheny: I didn't intend to listen to couples music but it seems appropriate for today. Metheny in particular seems to need a good foil to move beyond his usual aesthetic e.g. Jim Hall here as well as withOrnette Coleman on Song X. (Not available on lala; speaking of which, I wonder if lala will re-enable the ability to upload MP3s to the cloud).

Ellington/Coltrane/Cherry: I like how Ellington's piano is subdued and of course tasteful. It's hard to say if Coltrane plays less exuberantly because of this. The Blessing is an Ornette Coleman tune.

Beck: I"m listening to the version with conductor Kenneth Woods on guitar when he was 19, playing in an Indiana University percussion recital. Great photo of him in a tree at the time as well.

Muhly: A Hudson Cycle is a favorite of mine and I like the idea of variations via electronic instrumentation but this one reminds me of most Philip Glass or Steve Reich remixes - novel and unenlightening.

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Made in America (2004). Joan Tower /we're number two/

Image via Wikipedia

Norman Lebrecht tallies the most performed contemporary compositions. Joan Tower's Made in America is number two with 145 performances. Of course, Ford Motor Company paid to have it played in all 50 states.

Josesph Schwantner's Chasing Lights... is the next work they are sponsoring.

Made in America - Leonard Slat...

Ansel Adams: America (2009). Dave and Chris Brubeck /meaningful color/

Cover via Amazon

Tim Smith reviews the snow-plagued Baltimore Symphony concert that includes Ansel Adams: America composed by father and son Brubecks:

In the end, it was all very pleasant, and all very ably, sensitively performed. But it didn't begin to match the startling images on the screen; Adams conveyed more meaningful color with his black and white pictures than all the instrumental flourishes employed by the Brubecks. 

Marin Alsop speaks of the concert:

The work premiered last year in beautiful Stockton, California.

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The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Bernard Herrmann /bernard, doris, .../

I forgot that Bernard Herrmann plays the conductor in Hitchcock's 2nd version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, the one with Doris "Que sera, sera" Day. I get a bang out of watching the clip of Herrmann conducting Arthur Benjamin's Storm Contata...(warning: contains spoiler).

The Man Who Knew Too Much Cant...

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aworks ordered list :: top five for the day /girl i love you/

1. Girl I Love You. Massive Attack
2. Imaginary Landscape #1. John Cage
3. The Little Blue Frog. Miles Davis
4. Side Band. Arnold Dreyblatt
5. Intégrales. Edgard Varèse

Massive Attack: From the new (and so far disappointing) new album.

Cage: Kyle Gann blogs about his new book on 4'33" and as I read the post, this Cage work started playing from my queue. I like how Gann calls Cage a great writer but not necessarily a consistent thinker.

Davis: Outtake from Bitches Brew.

Dreyblatt: As played by the Orchestra of Excited Strings. And they do sound excited.

Varèse: I run the risk of listening to this so much that it is starting to sound conventional.

top 5 today :: 2/10/10

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Uranus (2007). Kyle Gann

Planet image via Wikipedia

Coincidentally, I listened to Booker Ervin's Uranus this evening and now I see that Kyle Gann has posted the Uranus movement from his composition, The Planets.

Uranus - Booker Ervin

aworks ordered list :: top five of the day /not out of kilter/

Lenin image by Getty Images via Daylife

1. Bemusha Swing. Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane.
2. Psychedelic (Психоделика). Sergey Kuryokhin
3. Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. Radiohead
4. Linus and Lucy. Vince Guaraldi
5. Kilter. Mary Ellen Childs

Taylor/Coltrane: This is so inferior to any version of Bemsha Swing by Monk but an interesting oddity nonetheless. I don't think you could say Taylor swings on the piano but he clearly his own peculiar aesthetic, evident even in this recording from his earlier days.

Kuryokhin: Russian artist and composer who among other claims to fame, "proved" on Russian TV that Lenin was a mushroom. If nothing else, this music is eclectic.

Radiohead: Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors is as outré as Radiohead gets.

Guaraldi: Listening to some jazz compositions by Vince Guaraldi as played by George Winston led me back to the hit.

Childs: While listening to this piano work again, I had to confirm the precise definition of "kilter."

lala: top 5 today :: 2/6/10

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aworks ordered list :: top five of the week /suitable for non-obsessives?/

Liz image via Wikipedia

1. Music in Twelve Parts, Part 2. Philip Glass
2. Divorce Song. Liz Phair
3. Spem In Alium. Thomas Tallis
4. 4 Cast: Unpredictable. Trimpin and Kronos Quartet.
5. Pharoah's Dance. Miles Davis

Glass: And Part 2 isn't even my favorite part.

Phair: This song is even better than I remembered. Creative, honest, vulnerable and it rocks albeit in a remedial way. I need to listen to the entire album again to remember why I was so disappointed with her work after this recording.

Tallis: From the Kronos Quartet album that also has George Crumb.

Trimpin: It's been a long week and I can't remember if I mentioned I saw the Trimpin movie last weekend (er, yes I did). Clip here. Anyway, I want to highlight that the Kronos Quartet play a key role in establishing a narrative in the documentary, leading to a performance of 4 Cast: Unpredictable. I don't think I've seen an audience of non-contemporary-music-obsessives enjoy unorthodox music so much as I did at the Red Vic movie theatre last weekend.

Davis: I have nothing particularly new to say about Bitches Brew but I will repeat how good improvised bass clarinet can sound and also link to this photo of Miles Davis playing tenor saxophone.

lala playlist:

top 5 this week :: 2/5/10

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