aworks :: "new" american classical music

links for 2008-01-01

• 'Let's Talk About Love,' by Carl Wilson -- New York Magazine Book Review
  "[Celine] Dion is the Antichrist of the indie sensibility, an overemoting schmaltz-bot who has somehow managed to convert the ethos of Wal-Mart into sine waves and broadcast them, at kidney-rupturingly high volume, directly into our internal soulPods."
• The Blog of Henry David Thoreau: Thoreau's Journal: 31-Dec-1853
  "The notes of the wood thrush and the sounds of a vibrating chord, these affect me as many sounds once did often, and as almost all should."

aworks list :: year-end bests via itunes

• best track added in 2004: Ann Street. Charles Ives. Susan Graham/Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Susan Graham. wikipedia
• best track added in 2005: Endangered Species. Alvin Curran. Bruce Brubaker. aworks
  
• best track added in 2006: April 18 1971 Los Angeles pt 1 - Persian Surgery Dervishes. Terry Riley. sonoloco
  
• best track added in 2007: Choo Choo. Duke Ellington. aworks

• best "beyond" track added in 2004: Everywhen. Massive Attack.
• best "beyond" track added in 2005: Backdrifts (Honeymoon Is Over). Radiohead.
  
• best "beyond" track added in 2006: From the Ritz to the Rubble. Arctic Monkeys.
• best "beyond" track added in 2007: 1 2 3 4. Leslie Feist. (despite Apple co-opting the video).

• most listened to album added in 2004: Wizards & Wildmen - Piano Music Of Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison. Anthony De Mare. 27 hours.
• most listened to album added in 2005: Inner Cities. Bruce Brubaker. 30 hours.
• most listened to album added in 2006: Multiples. Keith Fullerton Whitman. 14 hours.
• most listened to album added in 2007: Music in the Shape of a Square. Alter Ego. 11 hours.

• most listened to "beyond" album added in 2004: 100th Window. Massive Attack.
• most listened to "beyond" album added in 2005: Hail to the Thief. Radiohead.
• most listened to "beyond" album added in 2006: SXSW 2006 Showcasing Artist. 712 file bit torrent.
• most listened to "beyond" album added in 2007: Jump In!
• most listened to "beyond" album added in 2007, after the local seven-year-old got her own iPod: Bruckner: Symphony No 1. Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

• most listened to composer since 2004: Philip Glass. 282 hours.
• most listened to artist since 2004: Radiohead. 131 hours.

links for 2007-12-31

• Top 10 albums of all time « rain king
  "Cracked Rear View by Hootie and The Blowfish. Just kidding, but 16 million mofos bought this, damn it. And I’ll bet you were ONE of them!" No, but I know someone who went to Hootie's wedding. And Bitches Brew or Kind of Blue is a good question.

links for 2007-12-30

• The greatest string quartets ever composed by an American...
  "Pierre Boulez has once said that Elliott Carter is the only American composer of importance and I have to agree with that statement." ???
• In Memoriam: Sol LeWitt and Oscar Peterson « Conscious, and Occasionally Organized, Ramblings
• Sentences on Conceptual Art by Sol Lewitt
  "25. The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others."
• Disquiet » Best of 2007
  "Part 1/4 is of “commercial full-lengths,” what we usually call “records” or “albums,” which are reportedly a dying species though I feel like there were more released in 2007 than ever before."
• DEAD AIR SPACE
  "Earlier this year we asked an Oxford company called Best Foot Forward to look at the carbon and ecological footprints of two recent Radiohead tours, with the aim of reducing our carbon output."
• Joshua Kosman: Top 10 classical music events of 2007
  'LOW: "Book of Longing" (Oct. 9). Philip Glass' drab settings of Leonard Cohen's ludicrous poetry knocked the wind right out of the composer's 70th-birthday celebrations. MOST IMPROVED: Stanford Lively Arts. "Book of Longing" notwithstanding...'

Waltz No. 2 (Steinway Hall) (2008). Billy Joel /at least i would go in with low expectations/

Sometimes, when one specializes in a particular sort of music, one takes the bad with the good...

Christoph Eschenbach will conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra with Billy Joel:

Joel, 58, will play a selection of his own songs, and the orchestra will present the world premiere of his classical composition "Waltz No. 2 (Steinway Hall)" in a new orchestration.

Joel will also visit Sacramento in February, presumably in a more conventional pop concert. I have no data to judge if his "Christmas in Falluhah" was a hit or not.

This reminds of that relevant question in a recent Ask Mick LaSalle:

Dear Mick LaSalle: ...I'm betting good money you own the Billy Joel box set. Or maybe some Duke Ellington? You seem to be fascinated with things from that era - old, dated, corny movies that only you and Roger Ebert care about.

While maybe a third of the Ellington recordings I've heard recently are old, dated and corny, there's also a third that are rejuvenating, fresh, and vivid.

links for 2007-12-29

• Without Shoes: 2007's Best Of Year List
  "8. James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing... Blackshaw effortlessly reconciles various elements of Renaissance string music, UK folk, and 20th century composition... John Fahey meets Steve Reich?"

links for 2007-12-27

• Musicwhore.org: Album list
  He owns lots of John Zorn and Wayne Horvitz but also Joan Tower on cassette. I have the same Talitha MacKenzie CDs.
• History News Network: William Strauss, 1947-2007
  "In my opinion, those books were the most truly original and valuable historical works produced by the Boom generation (born 1943-1960 according to their definition, which is based on life experience rather than simple demographics.)"

4'33" (1952). John Cage /xmas quiz/

Via Calimac, from this week's Jon Carroll Xmas Quiz:

19. I stole this from Skeptics.com.au, and I think it very fine indeed: Mike Batt and John Cage have each composed a musical piece consisting entirely of silence. Which one is better?

Answer here (scroll down to the next to last entry).

Compulsion (1965). Andrew Hill /links/

1. Destination: OUT - It’s simply the most thrilling four minutes of Andrew Hill’s entire illustrious career.
2. All About Jazz - Any opportunity to hear longtime Sun Ra tenor saxophonist John Gilmore outside the Arkestra context is a special occasion and doubly so here on ample bass clarinet.
3. Amazon - Guitarist Nels Cline is adamant this is not a "tribute record" but just "a view": I'm not sure what the distinction really means, but I guess it's just his way of pointing to the fact that he's not setting out to render these compositions "faithfully".
4. Piero Scaruffi - This was as close to free jazz as Hill would ever get, as if the great hard-bopper had finally exhausted the possibilities of the genre.
5. Dusty Groove - One of the most dynamic albums that Andrew Hill ever cut for Blue Note -- a record of long tracks, played by a largeish group who seem perfectly suited to Hill's most creative musical ideas!
6. Clifford via Bagatellen - I've always found Hill's music "cold," and yet I also am a Hill-60s-completist.
7. Rhapsody Online

In a Lonely Place (1950). George Antheil /actually, today is in a *happy* place/

Some expected and unexpected surprises this Christmas:

• The local seven-year-old was wired last night and didn't get to sleep until 11:30pm. This meant I had to hurry to get things done and get to sleep before Santa Claus arrived.
• This morning, the local seven-year-old asked why Santa's handwriting looked suspiciously similar to the spouse's and then asked for another signature sample to compare more closely.
• Said child also thought it odd the CD from Santa still had a Rasputin Music tag on it.
• 
• On the CD front, I received a 12-CD set of the late Pavarotti. The local seven-year-old asked I play the remaining 11 CDs some other time.
• I got some choice books as presents. Those relevant to this blog, expected and unexpected: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross and Ten Great American Composers by Carmen Bredeson & Ralph Thibodeau.
• Finally, I received a requested DVD of Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart. I discovered the musical score was by George Antheil. Who knew he wrote film scores?

Alex Ross on George Antheil:

Antheil ended up making a living in Hollywood, writing scores for, among other films, Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman and The Buccaneer.

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george antheil on imdb.
now playing: nels cline. dedication. new monastery: a view into the music of andrew hill.