aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks on repeat

Music currently worthy of repeat listening:

rdio

• David Murray - Windward Passages. It Hurts So Much To See
• Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach. Trial 1, Entrance. Trial 1, "Mr. Bojangles". Building. Trial 2 / Prison, Ensemble. Bed, Prelude. Dance 2. Dance 1
• Weather Report - Weather Report Recordings of Wayne Shorter Compositions 1. Mysterious Traveler
• Amadou & Mariam - Folila. Mogo (feat. Bertrand Cantat). Dougou Badia (feat. Santigold). 
• Richard Skelton/A Broken Consort - Box of Birch. Weight of Days
• Dan Trueman/American Composers Orchestra - Playing It UNsafe. Silicon/Carbon: An Anti-Concerto Grosso
• Laurie Spiegel - An anthology of noise and electronic music vol. 4. Sediment
• Albert Roussel - French Orchestral Music. Le festin de l'araignee
• L'Estravagante - Vivaldi: Sonate da camera a tre, op.1. Sonata XII "Follia" in D minor, RV63
• John Cage/Joan La Barbara - Singing Through. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs
• The English Beat - I Just Can't Stop It. Mirror in the Bathroom

MP3

• Lou Harrison
  • John Schneider - Music for Guitar. Music for Bill and Me. Serenado for Guitar. Sonata in Ishartum. Sonata. Round
  • Anthony De Mare - Wizards & Wildmen - Piano Music. Homage to Milhaud. Largo Ostinato
  • Brooklyn Philharmonic - Music For Orchestra, Chamber Groups And Gamelan. March For The Marriage Of Frank And Anne Wigglesworth
  • Paul Price: The View from the Edge. Lou Harrison/Canticle #3. Edgard Varèse/Ionisation
  • Lou Harrison; Gamelan Si Betty - Gamelan Music. Philemon and Baukis
• John Cage
  • Boris Berman - Cage: Music for Prepared Piano. Mysterious Adventure. The Unavailable Memory of
  • LaSalle Quartet -  Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Mayuzumi, Cage. String Quartet
  • Joan LaBarbara - Four Walls. Act I Scene IV
  • Markus Hinterhauser - Works for Prepared Piano. A Room
  • Vol. 37: Complete Short Works For Prepared Piano: Philipp Vandre, Prepared Piano. A Room
• Bob Dylan
  • Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International. Joan Baez/Seven Curses. Ke$ha/Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. Zee Avi/Tomorrow Is a Long Time
  • Time Out of Mind. Million Miles
  • Highway 61 Revisited. From a Buick 6
• Philip Glass
  • Brad Lubman - Glassworks - Signal Live At (Le) Poisson Rouge. Music in Similar Motion
  • Brooklyn Ryder - Brooklyn Ryder Plays Philip Glass. String Quartet No. 4
  • Carducci String Quartet. Glass: String Quartets Nos. 1-4. String Quartet No. 4, "Buczak"
  • Music in Twelve Parts. Part 2
  • Minimal Piano Collection. Erik Satie/Vexations. Philip Glass/How Now
• Alan Hovhaness
  • Celestial Fantasy. The Holy City, Op. 218
  • Lucy Wenger - Through an Open Window. Sonata, "Fred the Cat"
  • John Williams - Pacific Coast Highway. I. Andante con moto from Symphony No. 2, Op. 132 "Mysterious Mountain"
• Thelonious Monk
  • William Henry Monk/Thelonious Monk - The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings. Abide with Me
  • Larry Coryell - Music of the Sphere: The  Thelonious Monk Songbook. Trinkle Trinkle
• Eric Dolphy
  • Iron Man. Iron Man. Duke Ellington/Come Sunday
• Radiohead
  • Christopher O'Riley, Matt Haimovitz - Shuffle.Play.Listen. Pyramid Song
  • Amnesiac. Dollars and Cents
• Meredith Monk
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto - MONK MIX. Astronaut Anthem
  • Robert Een - Facing North. Facing North
• Steve Reich
  • 1965-1995. Different Trains. 
  • Pat Metheny/Electric Counterpoint
• Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman - Song X. Song X
• Coleman Hawkins - The Bebop Years. Voodte
• James Hemmenway/Chestnut Brass Company - Music of American in the 1900s. Philadelphia Hop Waltz
• Joseph Jarman - Delmark 40th Anniversary. Little Fox Run
• Adrienne Albert - Images: Recent Chamber Works. Between the Dark and Daylight
• The Rolling Stones - Brussels Affair (Live 1973). Tumblin' Dice
• Harry Partch/New Band - Microtonal Works 2. Daphne of the Dunes
• The Smiths - The Sound of the Smiths. How Soon Is Now [12" Version]
• Sebastian Currier/Cassatt Quartet - Sebastian Currier: Quartetset, Quiet Time. Quiet Time
• Martin Bresnick/Musical Elements, Daniel Asia - Martin Bresnick ~ Music For Strings. Die Weber
• Aaron Copland/Arturo Sacchetti - Organ History - Organ Music In America. Episode
• Alvin Lucier - Wind Shadows. A Tribute to James Tenney
• Scott Joplin/Joshua Rifken - Scott Joplin Piano Rags. Maple Leaf Rag
• Leon Kirchner/Boston Composers Quartet - Complete String Quartets. String Quartet No. 3
• Wooden Shjips - West (Deluxe Version). Crossing
• John Fahey/Pelt - I Am The Resurrection: A Tribute To John Fahey. Sunflower River Blues
• The Toddlers - The Wire Tapper 27. Old Hat
• Carl Stone - Mom's. Banteay Srey 1991
• Charles Ives/Nathan Gunn - "American Anthem" - From Ragtime to Artsong. Slugging a Vampire
• Caribou featuring Luke LaLonde, Adem & One Little Plane - Melody Day EP. Melody Day (Four Tet Remix) 
• Boards of Canada - Twoism. Sixtyniner

Scarlatti Cadences (1997). Sebastian Currier /contemporary!/

Tom Service at the Guardian is going to do a year-long series on contemporary composers. That's of course good. What I wonder about is his definition of "contemporary":

We've decided that to be eligible to make it into this new-music lineup, a composer has to be alive (er, obviously!), or born within the last 100 years. 

I never understood if calling someone my contemporary meant they are still alive (Elliott Carter!), someone who was alive at some point during my lifetime (Samuel Barber!), or someone near my age (Sebastian Currier - nine days older than I am!). By the Tom Service rules, Samuel Barber would not be considered.

Currier's Scarlatti Cadences:

The outer sections take "Scarlatti-like" cadential formulas and expand upon them, creating delicate, sonorous and ephemeral textures, while the middle section emulates the percussive drive of many a Scarlatti sonata. 

Silicon/Carbon: An Anti-Concero Grosso (2007). Dan Trueman /uranian john adams/

The original starship Enterprise (Wikipedia)

The Playing It UNsafe recording by the American Composers Orchestra (rdio) contains Dan Trueman's Silicon/Carbon. From a Steve Smith concert review in 2008:

In Dan Trueman’s appealing “Silicon/Carbon: An Anti-Concerto Grosso” members of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra used computers to manipulate sounds made by the acoustic ensemble while adding rhythmic patter and rubbed-goblet peals. The results sounded something like a shimmering moment from a John Adams orchestral score stretched out indefinitely.

Lucid Culture's comments are equally interesting:

Dan Trueman’s Silicon/Carbon: An Anti-Concerto-Grosso begins with a seemingly unrelated allusions to Appalachian fiddling and then offers spaciously horizontal, Uranian ambience punctuated by occasional percussion and bell-like tones, a handful of crescendos to restart the suspense and a clever rhythmic tradeofff between the percussion section and the entire orchestra toward the end.

And from the composer:

In the original Star Trek (I believe), a distinction was kept between carbon-based and silicon-based beings. Carbon and Silicon, but one row different in the table of elements, are functionally quite similar, but different enough that life is built on carbon, computers on silicon. In this piece, we are exploring one particular way that familiar carbon-based music making can meet new, silicon-based music.

North by Northwest (1959). Bernard Herrmann /fandango beat/

(RottenTomatoes.com)

I have to say until now, I didn't know what fandango meant. Sedgwick Clark:

The music of California composer Harry Partch (1901-1974) is genuinely unique, played only on instruments he himself created. My interest has been known to wander in his longer works, but his 17-minute Daphne of the Dunes (1958; rev. 1967) was an aural delight and never outstayed its welcome. I was struck by the similarity of the work’s opening rhythm to the fandango beat in Bernard Herrmann’s title music for Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959).

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best of today's listening:

• Markus Hinterhauser - Works for Prepared Piano. John Cage: A Room
• Meredith Monk - MONK MIX. Astronaut Anthem
• Thelonious Monk - The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings. William Henry Monk: Abide with Me
• Pat Metheny - Steve Reich: 1965-1995. Electric Counterpoint

Related articles

• Vertigo (1958). Bernard Herrmann /title sequence/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• 'Vertigo'-ing Movies From 'Rocky' To 'Mean Girls' (huffingtonpost.com)
• Christopher O'Riley Performs Bernard Herrmann's Prelude to 'Psycho' (Mixed Media) (popmatters.com)

Sonata in Ishartum (1974). Lou Harrison

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best of today's listening:

• John Schneider - Lou Harrison: Music for Guitar. Sonata. Sonata in Ishartum. Serenado for Guitar. Round. Music for Bill and Me.
• David Murray - Windward Passages. It Hurts So Much To See.
• Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach. Trial 1, Entrance. Building. 
• MONK MIX: Remixes & & Interpretations of Music by Meredith Monk. Astronaut Anthem.
• Cassatt Quartet - Sebastian Currier: Quartetset, Quiet Time. Quiet Time. Quartetset.
• The Toddlers - The Wire Tapper 27. Old Hat.

Related articles

• Listen: Lisa Moore (wqxr.org)
• Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass /ecstatically dumbounding/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• Music from the US - Philip Glass (xworldmusic.wordpress.com)
• aworks best of today's listening etc. :: ask the ages (rgable.typepad.com)

Summertime (1935). George Gershwin /via the hairpin/

Scarlett Johansson (John McNab)

I think this version of Summertime by Scarlett Johansson and the dude from Massive Attack is a good and historically informed performance. Or not. Via The Hairpin.

Life Is [] (2009). Jason Treuting /john cage as guiding light/

So Percussion performs on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert.

Related articles

• So Percussion at Zankel Hall Reviewed (avantmusicnews.com)
• Brooklyn Phil, So Percussion (therestisnoise.com)
• So Percussion: It Is Time (Review) (popmatters.com)

It Hurts So Much to See (1993). Dave Burrell /metadata talk/

David Murray

Just listening to David Murray playing the splendid It Hurts So Much To See (rdio). 

Just reading the Naxos Blog's fascinating post on music file metadata. I strongly agree with point #4:

4) It’s tempting to fiddle with the fields, but this is risky

Several people have told me they’ve found the solution to classical tagging in digital collections, and then gone on to explain some variation on “use the album field for the work title, use the artist field for the composer and use the composer field for the artist”. A complex version of this scheme is explained in detail here.

At this point in my listening life, I'm roughly 50% rdio, 40% MP3 files, 5% YouTube, and 5% random sounds. This means I'm slowly turning into just a consumer of metadata rather than a metadata maintainer, which in turn means I spend more time tweaking playlists. Arguably, progress...

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best of today's listening:

• A Broken Consort - Box of Birch. Weight of Days
• David Murray - Windward Passages. It Hurts So Much To See
• Larry Coryell - Music of the Sphere - The Thelonious Monk Songbook. Trinkle Trinkle
• Thelonius Monk - The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings (Disc 2). William Henry Monk. Abide with Me
• Eternal Tapestry & Sun Araw - Night Gallery. Night Gallery IV
• Lana Del Rey - Born To Die (Deluxe Version). Video Games /also at amoeba/haight. is she ironic, romantic, capturing the zeitgeist of her generation and/or just commercially shrewd?/

links

• Metadata changes are not applied during any replica synchronization (esriaustraliatechblog.wordpress.com)
• Blogging 'bout WAYF: Why is the configuration called metadata? (oracleidentity.wordpress.com)
• How to rank well in Google search results (marketing.yell.com)
• Metadata as 'cultural source code' (freshandnew.org)
• Metadata and Its Importance (jaybhart.wordpress.com)

Gospel Preludes (1984). William Bolcom /weighty?/

Naxos has a new recording of Gregary Hand playing the Gospel Preludes, for organ by William Bolcom. I like my organ music to be "weighty," not sure if this measures up. Via rdio and and also YouTube:

Related articles

• Classical music datebook: It's William Bolcom Week and Pro Arte Quartet Week in Madison - with a lot more vocal, orchestral and chamber music on tap. (welltempered.wordpress.com)
• Works New or Newly Configured (nytimes.com)

aworks links :: april 3, 2012 /middle-manager rock/

(Wikipedia)

• "What was once the edgy counter-culture music is now establishment as hell. It's not the stuff longhaired youths bash out in their garages, it's the stuff late-50s middle managers listen to on their way to work." MetaFilter
• Adams conducts Adams and Glass. LA Phil
• Long post about Hedy Lamar including a diagram from the patent by her and composer George Antheil. This Recording
• Ignore any racial controversy; The Hunger Games may be sexist. The Last Psychiatrist

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best of today's listening:

• Andrew Lamb - Portrait in the Mist. Air & Ear Painters. Bohemian Love Affair. Portrait in the Mist. Eccentricity
• Scott Hartman - Lou Harrison: Chamber & Gamelan Works. Main Bersama-Sama
• Henry Cowell - Sounds of New Music. Aeolian Harp
• Sonny Sharrock - Dance with Me Montana. Slow Drag [alternate take]
• Markus Hinterhauser - John Cage: Works for Prepared Piano. A Room
• Jeanne Kirstein - John Cage: Music for Keyboards 1935-1948. Metamorphosis
• Eletrelane - The Wire Tapper 08. Gabriel