I generally can't get enough of early Philip Glass, up to but not including Einstein on the Beach...Duet for Contrabass and Piano by Muhal Richard Abrams is the most "outside" music of the week, although last night I did listen to Throbbing Gristle...Alexandra Silocea plays Prokofiev piano sonatas...That Chick Corea/Return to Forever album still sounds good to me even if most of the world considers it grandiose jazz fusion...James Farm is a mildly interesting new jazz album with saxophonist Joshua Redman and others...I really need to see Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry again.
The soundtrack from Martin Scoresese's Scorsese's Shutter Island is as good an introduction to modern classical music as any. MP3 Maniaco:
Produced by longtime collaborator Robbie Robertson, the tale of two U.S. Marshals sent to a remote Massachusetts island to investigate a murder is lent enormous weight by a score cobbled from the dismal atmospherics (the majority of the film takes place in a hospital for the criminally insane) of modern classical heavyweights like John Cage, Ingram Marshall, Max Richter, John Adams, and Brian Eno.
Dismal atmospherics? I'd say inviting aesthetic worlds. Fog Tropes! Music for Marcel Duchamp! Christian Zeal! Lizard Point!...
1. Fog Tropes (Orchestra of St. Lukes, conducted by John Adams) 2. Symphony #3: Passacaglia - Allegro Moderato (National Polish Radio Symphony, conducted by Antonio Wit) 3. Music For Marcel Duchamp (Philipp Vandre, prepared piano) 4. Hommage a John Cage (Nam June Paik) 5. Lontano (Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Claudio Abbado) 6. Rothko Chapel 2 (UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus) 7. Cry (Johnny Ray) 8. On The Nature Of Daylight (Max Richter) 9. Uaxuctum: The Legend Of The Mayan City Which They Themselves Destroyed For Religious Reasons - 3rd M (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; Peter Rundel, conductor) 10. Quartet For Strings And Piano In A Minor (Prazak Quartet)
Disc: 2
1. Christian Zeal and Activity (John Adams / Edo de Waart & San Francisco Symphony) 2. Suite For Symphonic Strings: Nocturne (The New Professionals Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Miller) 3. Lizard Point (Brian Eno) 4. Four Hymns, II For Cello And Double Bass (Torleif Thedeen & Entcho Radoukanov) 5. Root Of An Unfocus (John Cage) 6. Prelude - The Bay (Ingram Marshall) 7. Tomorrow Night (Lonnie Johnson) 8. This Bitter Earth / On The Nature Of Daylight (Dinah Washington & Max Richter)
That opening music turned out to be Ingram Marshall’s haunting “Fog Tropes.” The 1981 new-music classic found its way onto the screen thanks to the famed singer, songwriter and guitarist Robbie Robertson, who was music supervisor for “Shutter Island.” And Marshall’s wonderful piece, which was a hit of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recent West Coast, Left Coast festival, is only the beginning of a remarkable and gratifying collection of classic avant-garde scores Robertson has assembled for Martin Scorsese’s new, and I think mostly misunderstood, film.
Amazon lowers the price of their top 100 MP3s. hypebot.com
Revenue follows attention, so quit focusing on just subscription revenue. hypebot.com
22% drop in 2010 for physical music goods. hypebot.com
Greg Sandow will argue the affirmative side of the Cambridge Union Society Debate - "This house believes that classical music is irrelevant to today's youth." Participants include Stephen Fry. SandowCambridge Union Society
I don't think I'm that old but I can't imagine myself subscribing to a concert series anymore. Sandow
It's the new intersection of jazz and country. The article mentions an album by saxophonist Bryan Murray of Merge Haggard music by Merle Haggard interpreted in the spirit of free jazz and Ornette Coleman. Haven't heard it but I'm dubious. WSJ
Appreciating and buying great art and worthless art. Felix Salmon
The first of four films to feature the combined talents of Herrmann and special effects wizardry of Ray Harryhausen, THE 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958)
The 70th anniversary restoration of CITIZEN KANE (1941) as part of a broader look at prolific composer Bernard Herrmann on the 100th anniversary of his birth Bernard Herrmann's talents created the stunning score for the sci-fi classic THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951)
Dorothy Herrmann will discuss what her father considered his favorite film score, THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR (1947)
Herrmann's final work, the world premiere digital restoration of Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (1976)
Actor Jerry Mathers presents THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955), featuring the first score Herrmann wrote for Alfred Hitchcock
Over the last few weeks I’ve been fretting over the apparent malaise that seems to be resting upon and stifling American music. Okay, let me specify. I don’t mean American Classical music; the one-two punch of Ned Rorem and Phillip Glass exhausted that genre 30 years ago.
This reminds me to check a google search for "ned rorem". aworks is on the first page of results. That doesn't seem right...
Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" in 1831, while a student at the Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. His friend Lowell Mason had asked him to translate the lyrics in some German school songbooks or to write new lyrics. A melody in Muzio Clementi's Symphony No. 3 caught his attention. Rather than translating the lyrics from German, Smith wrote his own American patriotic hymn to the melody completing the lyrics in thirty minutes.
What are those qualities, inherent in the sentimental ballads of Thelonious Monk, which touch the soul? Round Midnight, I Surrender Dear, Pannonica, et al, it's more than just the writing but the actual performance which gets me. What is that? Memory?
Mihai Iordache: I guess it's the performance versus the writing. It's soulful music delivered in the most unsentimental way, which creates a "tough guy with a gentle heart" thing that gets me every time...
My current Monk favorites performed by others:
'Round Midnight - Protosynthesis
Bemsha Swing - Jim Hall Quartet
Bemsha Swing - Dr. Lonnie Smith
Let's Cool One - Fred Hersch
Crepuscule with Nellie - Branford Marsalis
Blue Monk - Dexter Gordon
But none of these begin to approach the playing of Monk himself.
“‘Blue Monk’ and ‘Well You Needn’t,’...are wonderful illustrations of bebop at its most joyous. ‘Blue Monk’ is Monk’s simplest, old-time blues melody (even New Orleans street bands play it). The main motive--a four-note chromatic rise in eighth notes--is the melodic springboard for several of Monk’s choruses.” JazzStandards
The material is performed by Radigue (synthesizer and recording), Robert Ashley (English voice) and Lama Kunga Rinpoche (Tibetan voice). Radigue was born in France and has studied under Pierre Shaeffer and Pierre Henry; her musical has an extremely organic and mystical electronics vibe, and has been previously documented on Phill Niblock's XI label, as well as Metamkine and Lovely.
Update: I didn't really convey what I'm feeling as I hear this for the first time. Radigue and Ashley!
I'm obviously outside the classical music mainstream so the Philadelphia Orchestra bankruptcy seems like a remote event to me. Still, I do own five albums recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra:
Jennifer Higdon: Concerto for Orchestra
Vincent Persichetti: Symphony No. 5; Piano Concerto
Disney's Fantasia
Richard Danielpour, Leon Kirchner, Christopher Rouse: Yo-Yo Ma Premieres
I'm particularly proud to own that KDFC CD. I also wonder if I'm the only person in the world with that album as well as owning music by say, Phill Niblock.
