aworks :: "new" american classical music

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass #much-awaited

London tomorrow night (tonight UK time):

This much-awaited concert provides a rare opportunity to hear a complete performance of Philip Glass's four-hour Minimalist masterpiece 'Music in Twelve Parts', scored for electric organs, flutes, saxophones and voice.

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass #loudforclassical

theguardian:

The music was loud – not rock-concert loud but much louder than anything I'd ever heard in a classical musics etting – and it was Glass's Music in Twelve Parts. 

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass #rework

New Philip Glass remix album coming, via Rolling Stone:

Disc One 1. My Great Ghost – "Music in Twelve Parts, Part 1" 2. Tyondai Braxton – "Rubric (Remix)" 3. Nosaj Thing – "Knee 1 (Remix)" 4. Dan Deacon – "Alight Spiral Ship (Philip Glass Remix)" 5. Amon Tobin – "Warda's Whorehouse Inside Out Version" 6. Silver Alert – "Etoile Polaire: Little Dipper" 7. Memory Tapes – "Floe '87 (Remix)" 8. Cornelius 3 – "Opening From Glassworks"

Disc Two 1. Beck – "NYC: 73-78" 2. Jóhann Jóhannsson – "Protest (Remix)" 3. Pantha du Prince – "Mad Rush Organ (Remix)" 4. Peter Broderick – "Island (Remix)" 

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass /sexing up the cerebral specificity/

The Awl on the recent Music in Twelve Parts performance:

The piece, you may not be surprised to learn, employs slowly developing melodic materials and some insistent rhythmic devices. Superficially “repetitive,” these attributes are actually in a near-constant state of evolution and change: a note is added to this instrument’s riff, then just as quickly taken away, before being assigned over to the tenor sax, and then the vocalist. The meditative quality of the entire piece collides with (and, yes, sexes up) the cerebral specificity of the second-to-second goings on in a way that remains uncommon in any sort of music.

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass /musiciens-athlètes/

Image via Wikipedia

Via Glass Notes, Music in Twelve Parts will be played in November at the festival automne en normandie:

C’est à la fois “une expérience intellectuelle et un voyage spirituel” que nous propose Philip Glass qui dirigera sur scène les “musiciens-athlètes” de son Philip Glass Ensemble.

Google translates:

It is both "an intellectual experience and a spiritual journey" that we propose Philip Glass on stage to lead the "musician-athletes" from his Philip Glass Ensemble.

I can still feel the effect from the San Francisco performance in February.

Andrew Porter on the work via wikipedia:

"A new sound and a new chord suddenly break in, with an effect as if one wall of a room has suddenly disappeared, to reveal a completely new view."

After a recent LisaH post mentioning John Adam's The Chairman Dances, I've been pondering if Music in Twelve Parts has any "narrative arc." While there is a captivating flow to three hours of all those varied structures, as suggested by Porter, I suppose the answer is no but I think it great nonetheless.

For an alternative viewpoint, here's an Amazon review from someone who didn't find the music quite as splendid:

An odd album, in that whilst it's an astonishing feat of musicianship, it's not much fun to listen to...Listened to on headphones, it will make you dive, screaming, for the 'eject' button after half-an-hour, but listened to in bits as an 'experience' it's much better - the musical equivalent of staring at clouds, or a flowing river, it changes and stays the same. 

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music in twelve parts: lala.

aworks operational note :: temporary delay due to economic crisis + ear-worm

America's greatest composer? via Wikipedia

I still have more comments to make about "the" concert. And, I want to highlight other interesting responses to same. FInally, I have a meme response backlog as well as a desire to reply to the perceptive person who pointed out all the "new" American classical music I've yet to blog about.

However, all of this is temporarily on hold due to:

Practical considerations of the economic crisis i.e. work has been overly interesting this week.

Ear-worm eradification i.e. since Monday's Philip Glass Music in Twelve Parts concert, the recorded versions have been playing from time-to-time, without prompting, in my head. I successfully self-treated for my previous ear-worm of  Charles Ives' Ann Street (and an unnamed Journey song I'm afraid to type for fear of re-starting playback). So I am hopeful the same treatment will allow me to resume regular listening and blogging this weekend.

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Update: Did you know the recent US stimulus package has some good COBRA insurance provisions?

Update 2: Apparently, I've had Radiohead and John Adams ear-worms.

Update 3: And another John Adams ear-worm.

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass /in the flow, parts 1 thru 6/

Music in Twelve Parts

More on last night's rare performance of Music in Twelve Parts:
1 Within two minutes of the beginning of the concert, I decided I didn't like the sound. With three-plus hours to go, this was not an auspicious start. The keyboards were too tinny and I couldn't hear the woodwinds. Since I am on record as saying that amplification in the concert hall can be a good thing, I implausibly blamed it on the legacy acoustics of Davies Symphony Hall. Curiously, it appears I didn't like the amplification at the premiere of John Adams'<Son of Chamber Symphony either. Fortunately, Part 1 is a favorite with its tranquil, soothing quality (well, compared to the usual Glass music that is), so I decided to just relax and take it in.

Then, I realized there are three keyboards on stage, not two. In all my years of listening to the recordings, I don't think I grasped this. I also made a mental note to confirm Bitches Brew by Miles Davis only has two keyboards as I remember it, not three.

At some point in this part, the ensemble may have gotten lost. Michael Reisman, one of the keyboardists, kept giving cues and looking at the other members. He didn't do this in subsequent parts.

2 The second part was when I let the visual experience take over. In the 1990s, I sat in the first row in Berkeley for the live accompaniment to the Koyannisqatsi films and it was captivating to watch. This time, I was farther back in row O. Still I could see all three keyboardists, their hands looking like possessed spiders. I couldn't see the sax players as well nor could I see if Jon Gibson was circular breathing. A video screen with close ups would have helped. Still, as I relaxed, the middle of Part 2 was probably the most transcendent section of the night.

3 During this part, I had the feeling that the audience and musicians were "pod people" automatons at the service of the extremely repetitious music. Who am I to question our place in the world? So I finally loosened up, sat back, waited for the section where hyper-drive kicks in, and enjoyed the resulting ecstasy.

4 After a much needed ten minute break, the next part sounded natural, like a well-meshed machine. Did my ears or my preconceptions give way? Or both?

At the end of this part, Glass stroked his head, either in a gesture of relief in making it this far or else a sign of the daunting challenge ahead.

5 This part for me was about how much the players and audience could express themselves, remembering it is a marathon not a sprint. There was almost no movement from the players, other than the intentional queues by Glass to signal the next repeated segment. In the audience, there was a gentlemen who did serious head and body flexing, in the manner of Keith Jarrett's funky movements during Miles Davis' Isle of Wight concert (YouTube). Me, I tapped my toe in rhythm with the woodwinds. Hey, at least I didn't start whistling like I do in the car.

6 My only explicit memory of part 6 was the thought of what a dub version of this would sound like i.e. more bass, extra reverb, no vocals etc. I think this indicates how much I was in the flow of the music by this point. Twenty four hours later, I am still in that musical flow.

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newest recording: Music In Twelve Parts - The Ph...

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-74). Philip Glass /we have positive confirmation/

Image via Wikipedia

I'm just back from the Philip Glass Ensemble's rare performance of Music in Twelve Parts at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

I had some trepidation about this, after my experience finally hearing Glass' Akhnaten by the Oakland Opera several years ago. While that performance was excellent, it confirmed my belief that the first act was stellar but the rest of the opera tails off in quality.

Since I liked most but not all of Music in Twelve Parts, I wondered if I would, after hearing the whole work live and suffering through the weaker moments, end up downgrading my overall opinion of it as one of the composer's best. Alas, this was a false worry and the piece, all four hours or so (plus an hour break for dinner), proved more sophisticated and pleasurable than I expected.

Keith Potter in Four Musical Minimalists makes it clear this piece is really post-minimalist:

A work of such length offers considerable scope not only for structural and other kinds of technical variety but also for a significant, and progressive, extension of Glass's musical language and expression.

More thoughts later...

aworks operational note :: i brake for busoni

Busoni via Wikipedia

Possibly because I've been immersed listening to three different Philip Glass Music in Twelve Parts recordings, I now find myself overly attracted to the keyboard music of Ferruccio Busoni. I've had Busoni tendencies before but it's back with a vengeance.

First it's a Naxos album by Wolf Harden:

BUSONI: Piano Music, Vol. 3 - ...

Then, The Busoni Two Piano Programme with Daniell Revenaugh and Lawrence Leighton Smith: The Busoni Two Piano Programme...

And tonight, it's Revolution for Cembalo by Sumina Arihash, including harpsichord music by Busoni, Ravel and numerous other composers: Revolution for Cembalo - Sumin...

So, there's something mechanically satisfying about Music in Twelve Parts that has me seeking out similar music, to the extent there is anything even remotely similar. The next logical step might be Ligeti's Continuum für Cembalo (albeit on barrel organ) as well as his Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes, possibly the ultimate mechanism piece: Ligeti: Works for Barrel-Organ...

Or else I need some in-patient acoustical therapy...

Music in Twelve Parts (1971-4). Philip Glass /pseudorandom ten/

Steven Rubio and the Syntax of Things have their random ten tracks. Here's my ten, albeit in ordered form (and pseudo-random at best. ???):

1. Music in Twelve Parts: Part 5. Philip Glass
2. Music in Twelve Parts: Part 4. Philip Glass
3. Locations Marked On A Map Of Silence. Autistici. Via the Kikapu label
4. Ruby, My Dear (Take 1). Thelonius Monk
5. Fossick. David Gunn
6. One + Two Fifths. Charlemagne Palestine
7. Have You Seen Her. Hey Kid Nice Robot
   
8. broken plates. Magneta Lane. From SXSW 2006
9. The 7HINGS Artist Profile: Charlemagne Palestine
   
10. podcastDefaultWelcome. Adam Curry

Numbers 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10 were free downloads. All tracks arguably exhibit minimalism. All talk is yawn. And none came via classical music magazines -- their editorial/advertising policies and reviewer credentials not withstanding. No conclusions drawn. Yet.

wikipedia: adam curry. magneta lane. charlemagne palestine. pseudorandom number generator new music box: the critical can of worms reopened in the insurance tradition (hi, charles ives)