The rock-star outfit, the mind-boggling virtuosity and the unusual
repertoire of young organist Cameron Carpenter already have shocked
many in the world's pipe organ community. But that's just the beginning
of the revolutionary changes the firebrand has in store for it.
I wouldn't call an organ arrangement of Duke Ellington's Solitude "revolutionary" but it is refreshing.
I also don't know if "virtual pipe organs" are a worthy endeavor although I do appreciate Mr. Carpenter outing himself as an atheist organist.
Byzantium's Shores lists his top 10 film scores. Bernard Herrmann is on the list for Vertigo. Psycho is the most notable but here's why he prefers Vertigo:
it's more subtly suggestive of unhealthy and obsessive love. It is lush and sumptuous music that nevertheless fills the listener with a sense of disquiet.
I'd probably pick Fahrenheit 451 or North by Northwest but all four are worthy.
Wikipedia has more than you may want to know about the Vertigo film score.
"Anthem of the Trinity" and "Across the Lake of the Ancient World" explore similar droning, lower level motifs more like what you'd hear with "In C." "Celestial Valley" and "Desert of Ice" tend to sparkle more and display more sonic relief. The eastern influence is subtle, but you'll hear it in small patches of melody wafting around through the lattuce of keyboard patterns.
The doctor gives it 5 out of 5 on the "Trip-O-Meter."
My 7 day Rhapsody on iPhone trial will be ending soon. I'm thinking I won't actually subscribe, especially since there are hints of a lala iphone app at some point. Also, how many more obscure Bernard Herrmann soundtracks do I really need to listen to?
It took me awhile to drop my old iPod habits and adapt to what Rhapsody has to offer -- almost any music I can think of "on demand." No more planned playlists, PC syncs, curated queues etc. Instead, think of something to hear, search for it, and hit play.
Tonight, it's three different versions of Philip Glass' Mad Rush by Donald Joyce on organ and by Bruce Brubaker and Alek Karis respectively on piano. No forethought, no planning, no work, just instantly gratifying results (well, for this Philip Glass fan, anyway).
It's day two of my seven day free Rhapsody trial. Music on demand on the iPhone is great. Selection on Rhapsody is great. The website is woefully inferior to lala, has no social features of note, and plays aren't "scrobbled" to my last.fm account. Overall, I'm still enthused.
After Philip Glass yesterday, this evening it's Ned Rorem. Browsing Rhapsody by genre, Classical / 20th/21-st Century / Twenty-First Century gets me a list of key albums, including Ned Rorem's Symphonies on Naxos. To be honest, I'm surprised this is listed as such a notable album for the decade.
Rorem is an 85-year-old composer; I'm not sure he is still composing or writing although Wikipedia suggests he is writing a sax concerto for Branford Marsalis. The composer on the movements in his third symphony:
I is a Passacaglia in C, a slow overture in the grand style. II was written originally for two pianos eight years before the rest, and incorporated as the second movement of the symphony. It is a brisk and jazzy dance. III is a short, passionate page about somnambulism, full of dynamic contrast, and coming from afar. IV is a farewell to France. V is a long and fast Rondo, in itself a Concerto for Orchestra.
Hmm, I wonder if his Paris Diary is available on Kindle so I can re-read it?
Since it is free for the first seven days, I'm playing with the newly available Rhapsody iPhone app. I don't know how large their catalog of streaming tracks is but I count 99 albums with Philip Glass music. Can I listen to all 99 without my head exploding? I probably won't take that chance. Still, the idea of listening to an infinite amount of music without ultimately being tethered to a computer is at least mind-expanding. My iPod Classic now seems archaic.
The only Glass recording I don't particularly recognize is a single on Nonesuch from 2005 of the original Music with Changing Parts. From the composer's web site:
To the mix, Glass now adds a sense of the epic — Music With Changing Parts was plotted as an evening-length piece and some early performances went on for up to two hours — and he allows both himself and the players a certain impulsive, almost Romantic, creative freedom that is markedly absent in the stark, formalist rigor of the preceding works.
Update: This recording is also on lala, along with an indication that I've already uploaded it which means I actually own it:
Andrew Sullivan is back from vacation and already taking a blogging mental health break, in this case, posting a video of the drive from SF to DC photographed in ten second increments:
I blinked and missed the Sierra Nevadas (although Nevada and Utah are certainly empty) and the entire Midwest goes by too fast to be recognizable.
The soundtrack is Michael Nyman but I turn off the volume and listen to Henry Flynt instead from his Graduation And Other New Country And Blues Music:
For the record, when I was young and silly, I had a blast driving from California to Nova Scotia via Vancouver (and back through the USA via US-40/I-70/US-50).
Violin Concerto No. 1 "On the Nature of Love." Robert Kyr
Henry Flynt is my artist discovery of the summer... These Cheap Imitation performances are by piano and by accordion; haven't heard the orchestral version yet...My pick of Lonely Woman cover versions may be by Domancich & Goubert...Lots of Monk and Herrmann this summer as well. Crepuscule is the "collateral adjective of twilight"...Ayaléw Mèsfin is (or was) an Ethiopian musician...If you like John Adams' Violin Concerto, you might also like Robert Kyr's.
I spent much of last weekend watching the YouTube stream of the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, consisting mostly of raucous rock and rap acts e.g. the crowd surfing singer from Cage the Elephant.
And then to resume that intensity level today, it was the late Julius Eastman although probably in one of his more restrained works, especially the prelude.
..a reminder to those who think they can destroy liberators by acts of treachery, malice, and murder. . . .[L]ike all organizations, especially governments and religious organizations, they oppress in order to perpetuate themselves. Their methods of oppression are legion. But when they find that their more subtle methods are failing, they resort to murder. Even now in my own country, my own people, my own time, gross oppression and murder still continue.
Image via Wikipedia
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