aworks :: "new" american classical music: January 2012

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January 31, 2012

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass /glorious and totally insane/

CultureBot on the new production:

So here I am, sitting in a theater of a marathon length of time, watching a work with sets that look like they came out of a vault, everyone’s wearing suspenders and singing numbers, and the lead violinist is actually dressed like Einstein. People are puffing their cheeks out and reciting nonsensical phrases. There is a court scene. There is a caboose scene. There are several dance sequences. There is a visual theme of a bright white line. And all throughout, people are getting up to go to the bathroom as is necessary, because there isn’t any intermission.

It feels both glorious and totally insane—like a dream.

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aworks favorites :: this month on rdio

Here's my playlist of the tracks I liked and listened to most on rdio. Some comments:

These are roughly sorted in decreasing order of favoriteness. The David Murray is by far my favorite for the month; the last track -- George Antheil music narrated by the late Vincent Price -- is novel, if not really lovable.
This list is not even necessarily representative of what I listened to this month as my MP3 playlists were mostly John Cage, John Fahey, and Wooden Shjips.
The Philip Glass greatest hits are mostly bombastic and in hindsight, I use John Cage and John Fahey as small-scale antidotes. After I attend all three nights of Einstein on the Beach in Berkeley later this year, I'll need to check into the John Fahey Memorial Rest Home for the Overly Arpeggiated.
Thanks to the Big City for reminding me of the contrast between Glass and Cage. And MetaFilter has a Glass birthday-inspired entry today.
Maura Lafferty touches on my blogs' achilles heel; I spend too much time on "polished, shiny, fancy big names than the new talent." This month's playlist does have music by Steve Peters and Rick Cox, but also probably has too much jazz by dead guys and nothing by hot New Yorkers.
The list does have a good dose of African tracks including new Amadou & Mariam as well as choice selections from Rough Guide: Desert Blues.

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January 30, 2012

Naqoyqatsi (2002). Philip Glass /the essential/

Sony Classical has a new 3 CD "best of" recording, The Essential Philip Glass:

Lightning / Changing Opinion (Songs from Liquid Days)
Façades
A Gentleman’s Honor (The Photographer)
Primacy of Number (Naqoyqatsi)
Metamorphosis IV
Open The Kingdom (Liquid Days, Part II)
Dance II / Dance VIII (In the Upper Room)
Glasspiece #1 (“Rubric” from Glassworks)
Opening / Floe (Glassworks)
Funeral of Amenhotep III (Akhnaten)
Point Blank / Definition (Naqoyqatsi)
Wichita Vortex Sutra
Forgetting (Songs from Liquid Days)
Dance IX (In the Upper Room)
The Dam (Itaipú)
Protest / Evening Song / Kuru Field of Justice / Tolstoy Farm (Satyagraha)
Hymn To The Sun / Akhnaten and Nefertiti / Window Of Appearances / Epilogue (Akhnaten)
Trial – Prison / Knee 1 / Bed / Knee 5 (Einstein On The Beach)

Mostly older recordings, with Naqoyqatsi maybe the newest...

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Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass /this is my jam/

beautyredefined via Flickr

This Is My Jam is a new website where you post your "jam" of the week. I'll start with Einstein on the Beach....

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January 28, 2012

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass /subject to new discoveries/

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The Chicago Maroon:

Because the opera is so long (five hours) and there’s no intermission, attention slips are not only inevitable, but intended. Like Einstein’s theory of time, this opera is relative. No one in the audience pays equal attention, as evidenced by the multiple comings-and-goings of the crowd. Looking up after a period of zoning out can make you subject to new discoveries—the train has moved, that man has sat down, the light in the background has changed color.

...For an opera without any plot, without any intelligible flow or structure or meaning, the emotional impact was powerful. Glass’s objective, whatever it was, had been achieved.

I can't wait...

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Radio Rewrite (). Steve Reich /everything in its right place/

Cover of Radiohead

Fader:

Next year, composer Steve Reich will debut a new work entitled “Radio Rewrite” at London’s Southbank Centre. The piece, to be performed by 13 musicians on March 5, 2013, is based on two Radiohead songs, Kid A‘s “Everything in its Right Place” and In Rainbows‘ “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.”

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Pendulum Music (1968-73). Steve Reich /human aesthetic expression/

The Music Salon takes on Ligeti's Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes, Reich's Pendulum Music and Cage's 4'33":

You might reply, that in the two pieces discussed above, the composer definitely had intentions. Well, ok, but they were not really expressive intentions, were they? In other words, while these might be justifiably considered experiments, they do not seem to have what I would term aesthetic content. Neither does Cage's 4'33 which I talk about here. Neither do any of Cage's pieces where the notes were chosen with chance procedures. The common element in all these pieces is the removal of any possibility of human aesthetic expression.

I think this was a phase that was mercifully brief. What surprises me is that people keep scheduling 'performances' of this stuff. Like some jokes, they are amusing once, but not for a second time.

I, on the other hand, expect to keep listening to all three works indefinitely. Maybe I don't care as much about human aesthetic expression...

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It Hurts So Much to See (1993). Dave Burrell /lots of music everyday/

I listen to lots of music everyday but this week anyway, I'm completely floored by the simple and poignant It Hurts So Much to See, with David Murray improvising on bass clarinet. (MP3).

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January 23, 2012

Sonata for Guitar (1986). Miklós Rózsa

Little or no relevant classical music in this week's releases on rdio. Best so far is an album of guitar music written by Miklós Rózsa.

Sonata for Guitar was composed in the US towards the end of the composer's life:

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January 22, 2012

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass /ecstatically dumbounding/

Image via Wikipedia

Ok, I'm all in for Einstein on the Beach, at UC Berkeley in October, as I just bought tickets for all three performances. I figure this could be my one and only time to see it.

Alex Ross just attended the opera in Michigan:

I've waited half my life to see the piece, and I was decidedly undisappointed: what an ecstatically dumbfounding thing this is.