As San Francisco prepares to be invaded by Radiohead next week, I'm listening to Paul Lansky's Mild und Leise. I had forgotten how Idioteque directly lifts a chord sequence from it.
Here's the Radiohead video with the repeated chords (unlike the original which doesn't depend on pop-like repetition):
And here's a cover of Idioteque made by someone who sampled the original Lansky piece, maybe in a bid for authenticity:
Paul Lansky provides an MP3 of Mild und Leise and comments on it:
It uses FM synthesis, which had just been worked out at Stanford, and later became the staple of Yamaha's DX7 series of synthesizers, and also a special purpose filter design program written; (in Fortran IV) by Ken Steiglitz.; Oh yes, the harmonic language of the piece is related to George Perle's 12-tone modal system. George and I had been collaborating for the past four years or so on theoretical developments in this system.; The piece is based on the 'tristan chord' and its inversions, hence the title.; I worked out a multi-dimensional cyclic array based on this chord as the harmonic basis of the piece, but that's the boring part...; I still (sort of) like the piece.
I (sort of) like it as well.
- lala.com stream of Lansky's smalltalk album on New Albion, which I would recommend, including the piece Not So Heavy Metal with fellow Princetonian composer Steven Mackey on electric guitar.
- Numerous versions on lala.com of Mild und Leise from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
- My prior post on Mild und Leise linking to the New York Times article where Lansky says he is returning to composing for traditional instruments.
