SIMF 2014 day 3
Andrea Neumann & Bonnie Jones preparing to play
Last night was the final night of the 29th edition of the Seattle Improvised Music Festival at the Chapel Performance Space in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle WA. I headed to Wallingford earlier than I did yesterday as recent Vancouver transplant Joda Clémant had come down to see the Bonnie Jones/Andrea Neumann duo again (and planned to followed them Dead-Head style to Portland). Snow had been threatening all day and it was a cold, bleak trip featuring missed busses and other low comedy. I met up with Joda at the Chapel and as we walked the couple of blocks to 45th where the restaurants and such are a very light snow began to fall. After vegetarian Thai and beers in Wallingford we returned to the venue and it had clearly snowed throughout dinner and we were trudging through a half inch or so with no sign of the snow ceasing. We made it to seats at the front left about two minutes before the first set.
SIMF 2014 Day 3 (02.08.14)
Andrea Neumann & Bonnie Jones beginning their set
The duo of Bonnie Jones and Andrea Neumann was what I (and Joda for that matter) were there to see. Happily they’d placed them in the lead off position which means they would a) have an actual soundcheck and b) I’d be able to take off at any point afterwards as I knew the snow was going to mess things up. As I noted yesterday I’ve seen Andrea and Bonnie in various combinations but had only heard their duo from their CD green just as I could see on Erstwhile Records. They were setup on a single table Bonnie with her collection of electronics and various objects at the end of the table stage left. Behind the table on the stage right end Andrea was setup with her autoharp, mixer, preparations and other electronics and objects. There was short introductions and then they came out to play.
Andrea Neumann & Bonnie Jones
The set began with Bonnie picking up pedals and connecting them together while Andrea sorted through her preparations and began to work the autoharp. What followed was a engaging approximately thirty minute continuous improvisation. It was quite a diverse set that flowed though a variety of techniques and approaches to the duo’s instruments revealing a wide array of interpenetrating sounds. Andrea early on used eBow on the strings of the zither creating a very pure tone, agited the strings with little metal mallets creating a wash of sounds which she then muted with a rubber object (looked like a sandpaper holder but could be ink printing related), brought out a fan which she hovered over the strings exciting the pickups, a return to the eBow toward the end and even some plucked out notes. Bonnie as noted began with putting her kit together in a deliberate, sound generating fashion eventually moving on to manipulating her open circuits. In front of their table was red plastic keg cup which turned out to have a speaker in it, which Bonnie picked up and manipulated during the set. At one point she picked up her little singing bowls and bells and dropped them on the floor, picking them up and dropping them again. She also did further percussive work with the cable ends that she uses on the exposed circuits of her pedals. Later in the set she moved the cup out into the audience and returned to more aggressive static outbursts from the pedals now emerging from the speakers behind the duo and the cup out among the seats. Two times during the set she played vocal samples, the first of what sounded like a teenage girl recounting something like a dream or from a diary or perhaps a report to an authority figure; flat, unaffected and tense. The second was much more heavily processed and it was a choir, or chanting but with enough reverb and echo and maybe multracked that it was more of a wash. This more solemn sample was playing at the end which was a sort of deconstruction with Bonnie vigorously moving things about and Andrea creating a more wall of sound with feedback and such. A strong ending with the contrast between this seemingly less focused playing and this created sound with it’s pointing toward the profound.
A really excellent set all around and I’m really glad I braved the weather to see it. In many ways these two work with sounds that have become quite standard material in this particular tiny corner of the improv world. Many of the techniques and processes used could be heavily associated with various musicians and isolated moments would be difficult to ascribe to a particular individual. But it just goes to show that what this music is about is not actually the material, it is the intentionality behind these sounds, the choices that are made, both beforehand and in the moment. There is an understanding of structure, that even if little of that is worked out beforehand, but that intuitively knows that you can move between events in a certain way, relaying upon a compatible partner to do the same and that it is the interpenetration of this disparate events, that are assembled in the heads of the audience that really creates the music.
Gust Burns, Jacob Zimmerman and Joe Morris
Joe Morris/Jacob Zimmerman/Gust Burns
It had continued to snow and I’d planned to just head out after the duo but based on the previous night I knew there would be another set without much of a break and then a short intermission before the third. So I figured I’d just check out the second group and head out at the break. Less disruptive and I could make farewells on my way out. So this set was guitar/alto sax/piano (respectively) and was much more free improv of the the older school. Based on Joe’s performance the day before this wasn’t a surprise and while Gust often works in more experimental areas I’ve seen him several times in these more traditional free improv type ensembles. Jacob Zimmerman was new to me but apparently he is a local boy having come from Seattle Garfield High which is famous for it’s jazz programs. I really don’t have the vocabulary to talk about this kind of music – it really has never been my thing and while I’ve seen a number of examples I don’t really have much to say about it. It went on way to long – five individual pieces adding up to nearly an hour of performance. Which is quite unheard of at these shows – last night for instance all three sets was about an hour and half. The most interesting playing was from Gust I thought who generally does a kind Cecil Taylor-ish type playing in these settings. But quite often tonight he would play super quietly which at least the first time he did it brought the playing of his compatriots way down, becoming much softer and less aggressive. But overall with the length and such I found this set tiring and so headed home afterwards missing the third set of Matt Ingalls, Greg Campbell and Paul Kikuchi.
There was a pretty good spread of snow out there now, perhaps as much as two inches. I talked a bit with Joda at the entrance to the Chapel and it turned out that the venue that Bonnie and Andrea were going to play in Portland had suffered from burst pipes and the show was canceled. They were looking to line up a house show or something, but from what I’ve seen PDX seems pretty shutdown. Eventually I made my farewells and walked to the bus. The bus kept being delayed (I could see this on the fantastic One Bus Away app) so I kept walking between stops. Eventually I was at a stop in the U-District where I had a couple of options to catch busses up Capitol Hill and I just waited it out. Eventually got on one that made it about 2/3rds of the way up the hill and then encountered a virtual bus graveyard – a steep section that had buses parked all along it and toward the top a jackknifed bus completely blocking the road. Ended up walking home from there on the icy roads. Lot’s of walking in the cold and snow but I think it was all worth it.
Walking home
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Photos from SIMF day 3: SIMF 2014 day 3
Check out all of my photos from SIMF 2014: SIMF 2014
SIMF 2014 day 2
Last weekend was the 29th edition of the Seattle Improvised Music Festival held as it has been for years now at the Chapel Performance Space in the Wallingford Neighborhood of Seattle WA. This year among others they invited Bonnie Jones and Andrea Neumann whose work I’ve enjoyed for quite some time. Bonnie of course plays in the excellent duo English with Joe Foster and Andrea has been a stalwart of the Berlin scene performing on numerous great albums. They’ve been playing as this duo for some time now and of course put out the excellent green just as I could see on Erstwhile Records. So even though it’s been so cold and it constantly threatens to snow I made out Wallingford to see them perform. They played days two and three of the festival, their duo on the third day and in combinations with Seattle based improvisors on the second.
SIMF 2014 Day 2 (02.07.14)
Joe Morris solo
Joe was playing a hollow body electric guitar run through a simple amp with minimal (or no) effects. He played three short improvisations, generally favoring a pretty continuous stream of sound with a mix of melodic and more abstract elements. The first was sort of harmonic Fahey-ish bits interspersed with Bailey-esque angular bits. The second piece, which I found the most interesting, was based around continuously strumming a few strings which generated a really un-guitar-like metallic high pitched effect. This he moderated by chording high on the neck and the interactions of this created some odd tones and lingering overtones. The last piece seemed to be the longest and it again explored more melodic territory. It seemed pretty wandering and not much of it really stuck in my mind except the ending which was with a harmonic that seemed to surprise Joe a bit and which he immediately recognized as a sign to end. A nice ending to a set that was very well done for what it was, though what it was isn’t necessarily my thing.
Andrea Neumann/Gust Burns
Andrea on autoharp, electronics, Gust on seemingly on turntable. I have to admit I was expecting a duo of Gust on piano and Andrea on her custom piano guts. But perhaps that would have been to obvious? This turned out to be pretty interesting and riskier I think. The sounds were rather cut up with piano samples from Gust (perhaps a record of himself?), a chopped up and frequently cut-off speaker, perhaps a recorded lecture, (couldn’t tell if who was doing this, Gust I suspect) with Andrea initially tapping on the heavily amplified strings which generated a compellingly rich ponging sound. She later worked feedback in various forms, plucked out a little melody on the strings toward the end placed a contact mic on her throat and mixed in some sub-voclizations. At various times throughout the piece there were silences but I have to say these came across as rather forced. The noise floor from Andrea’s setup is pretty high and when you go from that to silence you either let that hum play out or fade it down. She did the later and that I think is what came across as pushing the sounds around. I tend to think it’s best to let it ride but I know there are those who feel that gives a floor upon which the improvisor can rest. Always choices.
Bonnie Jones/Jonathan Way/Naomi Siegel
This trio featured Bonnie Jones playing her usual open circuits but she also has added a small laptop, contact mic’s and percussion elements to her setup. Jonathan Way, of Seattle Phonographers Union fame (and whom I played with in EyeMusic) seemed to be processing field recordings. He stuff was soft and subtle, often sounding as washes or wind and faint environments. Naomi Siegel, whom I don’t recall having seen before, played trombone with and without mutes and recordings via her smart phone. The ensemble did two fairly short pieces. The first featured Bonnie on open circuits most of the time, though she also did some contact mic work. There was this rather tribal-ish percussive bit at one point that could have been Bonnie playing from her laptop though it certainly could have been a field recording from Jonathan. Jonathan primarily seemed to work with processed field recordings, winds and washes and pretty subtle ambient stuff. There was some overlap between his and Bonnies’s sounds at times which nicely layered and merged together and I didn’t expend much energy separating them. Naomi primarily worked with extended techniques on her trombone mostly in the static-y, sputtery realm but she also would drop in these melodic phrases almost like a jazz quotation. At least once she held her smart phone up to her mic and played some recorded sounds of what sounded like crowds, or conversation of some sort. In the main I found she didn’t quite fit with the electronic duo, though sometimes the more abstract and subtle trombone bits mixed in nicely.
This trio featured Bonnie Jones playing her usual open circuits but she also has added a small laptop, contact mic’s and percussion elements to her setup. Jonathan Way, of Seattle Phonographers Union fame (and whom I played with in EyeMusic) seemed to be processing field recordings. He stuff was soft and subtle, often sounding as washes or wind and faint environments. Naomi Siegel, whom I don’t recall having seen before, played trombone with and without mutes and recordings via her smart phone. The ensemble did two fairly short pieces. The first featured Bonnie on open circuits most of the time, though she also did some contact mic work. There was this rather tribal-ish percussive bit at one point that could have been Bonnie playing from her laptop though it certainly could have been a field recording from Jonathan. Jonathan primarily seemed to work with processed field recordings, winds and washes and pretty subtle ambient stuff. There was some overlap between his and Bonnies’s sounds at times which nicely layered and merged together and I didn’t expend much energy separating them. Naomi primarily worked with extended techniques on her trombone mostly in the static-y, sputtery realm but she also would drop in these melodic phrases almost like a jazz quotation. At least once she held her smart phone up to her mic and played some recorded sounds of what sounded like crowds, or conversation of some sort. In the main I found she didn’t quite fit with the electronic duo, though sometimes the more abstract and subtle trombone bits mixed in nicely.
Their second piece began with Bonnie playing percussive stuff with two cable ends, banging on the frame of her chair and the table and eventually hitting little bells and metal bowls on her table. Jonathan layered in some wind sounding washes and via her smartphone Naomi dropped in distant vocal samples. This piece was more episodic with silences and near silences between it’s several “movements”. After the initial percussive intro, Bonnie moved open circuits and Naomi returned to the trombone. Later she did more percussive work, tapping around the body of the ‘bone. The piece concluded with a wash of sound that gradually increased in volume and intensity with radio from Bonnie and sputtery trombone from Naomi. Jonathan increased the volume of his wash of sound until they all dropped out and he quickly faded his sound out a moment later. This piece varied a bit in structure and elements from the first, which did have a bit of testing each out to it. While still a bit mixed I definitely enjoyed this one and it was a good ending to this night.
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Photos from SIMF day 2: SIMF 2014 day 2
Check out all of my photos from SIMF 2014: SIMF 2014
Enjoyed Music 2013
Having let go of my obsessive following of music I still found myself with more than enough great music to listen to this year. Being able to judiciously select what discs (or increasingly preferable, digital files) to buy I found that I liked almost all that I bought. Curiosity and what seems to be a decrease in criticism (R.I.P. Paris Transatlantic, Dusted (though semi-revived) &c) and perhaps the move to more gated preserves from the commentariat did lead to my purchasing a few duds, but I’m sure I missed more good stuff than bought bad. Having lost touch with those dusty corners of the nets where all music finds itself eventually (or even before it hits the virtual shelves) I can only express endless gratitude to Alastair Wilson’s excellent radio programme Admirable Restraint for providing lengthy tastes of music new and old. Alastair has put out a fine collection of new pieces from artists old and new for a good cause for which I can only recommend you dig deep: by gum it’s a compilation. The loss of my record player last year and the refusal to acquire a tape deck (I was buying music during the heyday of cassette and we pretty much despised it then as every playback degraded the tape) has led to a few things missed so let me just add a word of praise for those labels who put their boutique format releases up for digital downloads as well. I think I’ve listened to more solo piano this year than anything everything from Beethoven to Feldman to Jurg Frey to Cage &c &c. I’m happy to report it was a great year for the kind piano musics I like. You’ll see plenty of it represented in the selections below. Finally a hearty thanks to all the musicians, producers, labels, writers and listeners out there (also to all those who compiled their year-end lists early: got a lot of great stuff in just the last few weeks). There is plenty of great vital music being made and if I only listed here what touched me the most deeply out of the small fraction I heard it doesn’t really mean all that much.
David Tudor The Art of David Tudor (New World Records)
When this set was announced there was no doubt in my mind that this would be the release of the year, if not the decade. New World Records epic Music for Merce box set contains excerpts of the bulk of the pieces contained in this set and serves in a way as a sampler and impetus for this set. Throughout my lengthy five part review of Music for Merce I was continuously thrilled to hear these pieces but just as constantly lamented their excerpted nature. More than once I urged New World to release a box set of Tudor’s uncut performances. I doubt that I had any influence on this subsequent release but I can’t say how pleased I am it came about. New World really did yeoman’s work on this set with seven discs spanning the entirety of Tudor’s career from his electro-acoustic interpretation of Cage’s Variations II to Neural Network Plus with it’s complex combination of computer and live electronics.
This set deserves an equally lengthy discussion as Music for Merce but really delving into Tudor’s music demands an amount of research and work that basically hasn’t been undertaken. In my Music for Merce reviews I discuss each of the pieces that were excerpted, all of which are included on this set. Since I don’t do a minute by minute discussion of them they serve quite well regarding these pieces. Of course there are a few things on this set not included there: Tudor’s first major piece Bandonean !, two versions of Rainforest IV, another performance of Variations II that is a welcome edition to the other two available, the epic Cage/Tudor overlaid pieces Mesostics re: Merce Cunningham/Untitled and most notably the Anima Pepsi pieces from the 1970 Osaka World Fair. My preview post of this set upon it’s initial announcement discusses the significance of all of these pieces. Regarding the material shared between the two sets you can find my write up on the these pieces in the following links: Virtual Focus, Neural Network Plus, Phonemes Weatherings, Webwork and Christian Wolff’s For 1, 2 or 3 People.
In trying to analyze Tudor’s live electronic work James Pritchett found himself constructing his own circuits and began to work out how the music works from the ground up (I think this is from this interview: RWM SON[i]A #166). This is the equivalent of doing score analysis for conventionally notated pieces (though a far greater undertaking) and I think a necessary first step in understanding his process and methodology. From there a theory could be worked out (something like my (incomplete) Network Instrument Theory which starts from my electronic music making and builds up). Pritchett eventually gave up on this task which is a shame as it appears no-one else has undertaken it. A book covering the entirety of Tudor’s compositions, similar to Pritchett’s Music of John Cage is I think a needed resource. But for now the music itself will have to serve and this set, while alas still only a portion of Tudor’s work (though the major pieces I think it’s fair to say) does so admirably.
Dennis Johnson November [R. Andrew Lee, piano] (Irritable Hedgehog)
As a reader of Kyle Gann’s always informative and frequently amusing blog, Post Classic, I have been able to follow along with the rediscovery of Dennis Johnson’s November. Remembering November which Gann posted in later 2007 was the beginning of this odyssey and there are quite a few posts documenting his transcription of the piece from a hissy tape and a few notes, to the locating of Dennis Johnson himself (who had “given up on the 21st century in 2007” and thus disappeared from internet communication), to posting an mp3 of himself and Sarah Cahill performing the piece (currently unavailable AFAIK) to finally the release of R. Andrew Lee’s recording on the increasingly indispensable Irritable Hedgehog label. All this posts and many more can be found by searching for November on Gann’s blog.
I downloaded a lossless version of November from Irritable Hedgehog’s Bandcamp page which allows for one to do seamless playback of the nearly five hour piece. It has been played over and over again since that time. It’s meandering spare piano lines becoming increasingly varied with moments of more density, or intensity or lyricism I find endlessly captivating. I’ve listened to it straight through but also have just put on one of the “discs” as I’ve gone to bed. Some nights I hear less than others but there have been those nights where I heard the whole thing. Beautiful music, but more than that as it weathers any degree of scrutiny.
Eliane Radigue Ψ 847 (Oral)
Along with November this album has probably had the most spins in my abode this year. Admittedly this again due to it being amenable to being put on as I attempt to sleep but as with all albums that meet that criteria that simply means that I’ve listened to it in the dark primarily focused on it as sleep remained at bay. This one has been a long time coming as it was recording in 1973 and it initially planned to be released by Halana Magazine years ago in an edited form which of course never materialized. Various reports of concerts featuring the piece mixed live from the original master tapes certainly wetted the appetites of those of us who love her electronic work. So when this was finally announced in a double CD form with a live and studio mix by Lionel Marchetti it was beyond welcome. The piece is another masterful Arp 2500 introspection utilizing spare tones carefully drifting and a bit of tape echo and some really stunning resonant filter ringing. Both versions are fascinating with the live one somehow even more stripped down than the studio. The applause at the end always comes as a shock. Things like this often don’t (or can’t) hold up to the legend and it is doubly rewarding when they do.
Jakob Ullmann fremde zeit addendum 4 · solo III für Orgel (Edition RZ)
The release from last year was Edition RZ’s three CD Jakob Ullmann box Fremde Zeiot Addendum which oddly enough contained a piece of cardboard inside it to prevent the contents from rattling about. It turned out that 2013 brought us a fourth disc that replaces that piece of cardboard and makes this vital set even more tremendous. A piece for solo organ that is heads and shoulders above any contemporary composition I’ve heard for the instrument since Messian. There have been a number of attempts to do highly minimal music on the church organ that to my ears have really fallen flat. This instrument, which I love so much, has really proven an insurmountable challenge to apply to this domain. Until now that is. Ulmann’s piece and the masterful playing of Hans-Peter Schulz beautifully recorded by Edition RZ finally reveals this unrealized potential of the instrument.
Michael Pisaro Closed Categories in Cartesian Worlds [Greg Stuart, perc] (Gravity Wave)
This one was one of those I got late in the year but I am sure glad I did. As a long time fan of pure tone music from the clinical precision of Alvin Lucier to the all encompassing intensity of Sachiko M, to the piercing interiority of Mitsuhiro Yoshimura (not to mention my own explorations) this has long been a domain I’m fascinated with. Hewing closer to the Lucier mode of operation (and indeed the piece is dedicated to him) with a very precise composition utilizing electronic sine tones of specific duration in concert with the inherent variability of bowed metal. Michael Pisaro put it this way on his blog:
The physics of the crotale are very interesting, since like all metal instruments, its actual motion is relatively chaotic. It is not the absolutely stable and regular sound that it appears to be, but has fluctuating character, perhaps a bit like the reflected glare of any shiny object.
The piece was composed at percussionist, and frequent Pisaro collaborator, Greg Stuart’s request and his performance here is nothing short of inspired. The combination of the bowed crotals and the uncompromising electronic tones is just a shear physicality. Those of us who already appreciate Sachiko or Lucier already know that sine tones of sufficient cycles beat in your ear and undermine your sense of balance as well as subtly varying and shifting as you move around and this album delivers these effects in spades. But it isn’t nearly as clinical as Lucier often comes across as though it is as precisely defined as his pieces. The crotales I think are the special sauce here and Stuarts virtuosity.
Antoine Beuger Sixteen Stanzas on Stillness And Music Unheard [Greg Stuart, perc] (l’innomable)
At the same time I received Closed Categories in Cartesian Worlds I also received this disc. Which like the aforementioned Pisaro composition this one also involved Greg Stuart bowing metal, this time the chimes on a vibraphone. The recording is very quiet and slowly increases in volume across it’s duration. Like the crotales of the previous entry the bowed vibraphone has a very pure almost electronic sound but with a bit of warmth of instability. The music here is far less physical – the lack of high register, relentless electronics means there is only the acoustic sounds – but it is achingly beautiful. Less demanding and intense it is an excellent companion piece and probably my favorite composition yet from Antoine Beuger.
Keith Rowe/Graham Lambkin Making A (Erstwhile Records)
2013 has seen the fewest releases from Keith Rowe in years with this collaboration with Graham Lambkin being one of the few. This duo was put together by Jon Abbey of Erstwhile records and interestingly the two musicians independently decided to primarily utilize contact microphones and drawing supplies. Keith has been placing contact mic’s on his table and drawing with charcoal on it for some time now (I think I first witnessed this in 2008 at the Amplify fest in Kid Ailack Hall) and the whispery scratches have become a feature of his sound world. With Lambkin utilizing similar technique as well as the brittle, mid-range nature of contact mics this is truly an album of layers. Another layer is that the second track, the titular Making A, is a Scratch era composition by Cornelius Cardew erstwhile Rowe comrade. I can’t say that much of Lambkin’s work has appealed to me and I was a bit skeptical by this collaboration (though always curious). But once again Abbey’s ear for duo’s has born fruit and this really is a remarkable recording, one that I’ve returned to again and again throughout the year.
John Cage Variations V (Mode Records)
It’s sort of surprising how much Cage is still unavailable especially from his electronic period. Only in the last couple of years was Variations VII made available and it took until this year for Variations V to be available outside of special order from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. A truly collaborative piece, it involved sound sources monitored by Cage, Tudor and Mumma trigged by the MCDC. The piece is the dance, is the live electronics is the composition. It of course inherently indeterminacy due to the live electronics, thee variability in the spaces performed and in the dancers not to mention the fragility of the electronics. This excellent DVD from Mode presents a German Television shows broadcast of an in studio performance those allow us to experience this truly multimedia piece with the dance and video by Nam June Paik and Stan VanDerBekk as well as (occasionally) see the musicians working their electronics. It also includes an audio only recording from a live performance earlier in the tour which I think helps to understand this continually variable piece. Two interviews with dancers Carolyn Brown and Sandra Neel with Gus Baker provide some context, add details and more than a few amusing anecdotes.
Haco/Toshiya Tsunoda TramVibration (skiti)
I am in agreement with many that Toshiya Tsunoda is one of very (very) few field recordists doing vital work but even he has as many duds as successes. It seems to be his more conceptual pieces that turn out to be more interesting in concept than in execution so I was naturally skeptical about this recording he made along with Haco of a moving tram (I also was confusing Haco with a vocalist and I couldn’t imagine how that would work). However I was willing to watch this video, The Tram Vibration Project, to get a sense of how this turned out. I pretty much immediately ordered this disc after watching it. Of all the releases I heard from 2013 this one seems the most sound focused. It is about finding the sounds of this tram as it moves along. It’s structured by the trams passage and the choices of where to place one’s microphones (and apparently massive editing by Tsunoda). And what a rich world of crackles, hums, shakes, rumblings and other indescribable and downright fascinating sounds are revealed here. Watch the video, it is much better than anything I (or anyone) could write on this one.
John Tilbury/Oren Ambarchi The Just Reproach (Black Truffle)
John Tilbury’s magnificent touch on the piano and his effortless shifting from the abstractions of the body and insides of the piano, to pure romantic lyricism are fully present and are indeed the core of this album. Oren Ambarchi though gives this music it’s spine with a deft touch and breathtaking subtlety. One can’t help but think of Tilbury’s collaborations with Keith Rowe but the only similarity here is perhaps those moments before Keith has really begun to play and the buzzing and hums of his setup provide a tapestry upon which the piano rests. Ambarchi barely adds more than that grounding but mines that background radiation for all that it’s worth. The few times he surfaces are in delicate counterpoint to Tilbury’s playing and it almost comes across as the piano resonating into alien space.
This alas was a vinyl only release but happily the kind folks at Beatport have made it available for lossless download which you can find here: The Just Reproach.
and the rest
Graham Stephenson/Aaron Zarzutzki Touching (Erstwhile Records)
John Cage Solo for Piano [Sabine Liebner, piano] (Wergo)
Eva Maria Houben Piano Music [R. Andrew Lee, piano] (Irritable Hedgehog)
Bryn Harrison Vessels [Philip Thomas., piano] (Another Timbre)
Stephen Cornford & Samuel Rodgers Boring Embroidery (Cathnor Recordings)
John Cage The Ten Thousand Things [I Ching Edition] (Microfest Records)
Toshiya Tsunoda O Kokos Tis Anixis (edition.t)
Meridian Hoquet (Accidie Records)
Eduard Artemiev Solaris Original Soundtrack (Superior Viaduct)
sketches of pain
Substrata 1.3.3
This weekend was the third iteration of the yearly Substrata Festival of which I attended the final night. The festival has always been held at the Chapel Performance Space in conjunction with Wayward Music and being on their mailing list I’ve been aware of it from it’s conception but this was my first time attending. Every year there has been one or two acts I’d have been interested in seeing, but being a festival that would of course mean sitting through the rest, some of which were distinctly not to my taste. These festivals are put on by the ambient musician Rafael Anton Irisarri and have proven to be popular enough that they sell out fairly quickly which considering the space is certain to lead to a hot crowded experience. This years festival, which has been expanded to three days, was no exception except that the third day wasn’t sold out when last I got a mailing from Wayward Music and Kim Cascone was closing the festival. I haven’t really kept up with Cascone’s work, but back in the early days of my interest in various experimental forms he had a number of releases I was pretty into. I also have been aware that his recent work is more along the lines of acoustic experiments utilizing beating patterns and acoustical phenomenon which is certainly something I find fascinating if not a primary interest of mine. Since I could secure a ticket online and the other performers on this night, neither of whom I’d heard of, sounded at least interesting I went for it.
Of course the other thing worth mentioning is that this festival is basically ambient music and while I’m not adverse to the form, there really are few outstanding examples of it. The festival is driven by Irisarri’s tastes and has grown to include post-minimalsim as well as an eclectic mix of electronica and hybrid compositions. The materials provided by the festival read rather like an ‘artists statement’ (with all the connotations that implies):
Our goal is to create an immersive weekend experience that engages the audience in a dialog with the artists that goes beyond the constrains of traditional performer/listener interactions. Each showcase is curated to distinctly portrait different takes of the potency of minimalism, varying between weighty combinations of tonalities used to sculpt out atmospheric ambiance, or powerful dynamic structures made up of the subtlest filigree of sonic building materials. By creating compositional spaces dealing with a sense of mass, along with openness of structure, the perspective of scale and the listener’s place in relation is shifted to allow for greater a sense of place beyond the environ of the performance in the interplay of the moment and physics of the larger world. In all, Substrata is an event that fosters appreciation for our natural surroundings and creates meaningful interaction between artists/participants while exploring a new locality.
As the name substrata implies, it is about subtle aesthetics that go beneath the surface and into deeper aural territories.
Saturday July 20th was as nice an evening as can only be found in the Pacific NW. A beautiful sunny day with temps in the uppers 70s (F) by the time I arrived at the Chapel the sun was beginning to dip behind the Olympic Mountains. There was a lot of people here and the wait for the doors to open in the lobby was a hot and sweaty, though happily short, experience. Once we were all inside the Chapel itself wasn’t completely packed and it wasn’t oppressive it at all, especially with the cooling air blowing in from all the open windows. I got a seat a few rows back by a pillar that created a gap that allowed for an easy escape if that proved necessary and was relatively centered. I would have liked to have sat by the windows as I think that would have added greatly to the experience but felt that for the Cascone piece I’d want to be inside the surround sound setup. They had very defined times for each act and apart from starting a bit late maintained that schedule fairly closely.
1) Christina Vantzou
Christina Vantzou is a an American multimedia artist/composer who is now based in Brussels. She introduced the string trio and harpist who would be playing the numerous mostly short (unidentified) pieces on this evenings program and then returnign to her laptop kicked things off with a loud, overbearing synth pad. The pieces were almost all constructed of her playing multitrack recordings on her MackBook while the string trio and harpist played along. The tracks she trigged mostly consisted of rather loud pads and washes plus the occasional sustained vocals worked into multitrack choirs. The musicians were pretty good and several of the pieces where they were more dominate I thought were the more engaging. Their playing was usually fairly long sustained, usually unaffected tones. Even the harpist bowed her instrument in the first piece though after that she played mostly rather staccato notes. Vantzou also “conducted” these pieces, sort of “dancing” around doing rather Butch Morris-esque conducting.
Along with this there was also rather cliched video such as a slowed down candle flame and slow pans of a girl in a church and so on. This it appears was done by an unrelated “video artist” and accompanied most of the performance in the festival.
2) Michal Jacaszek
Michal Jacaszek is a Polish “electro-acoustic composer” who for this show at least appeared to be laptop DJ-ing along with a harpsichord (Kelly Weyse) and clarinets (“Crystal” Beth Fleenor). Rather Saule like in his DJ-ing though with perhaps not quite as good of choices. He used lots of acoustic instrument samples and was perhaps processing and sampling the two live instruments but it did seem that barring improvisation from the instrumentalists (which did not seem to be the case) he could have just played their contributions along with multitude of other elements he was utilizing. Often fairly loud and dense each peice always had a point (or two) were everything dropped out to a bare minimum and then rebuilt in a different direction. Overall fine with some nice moments, typically involving the harpsichord and bass clarinet interacting with the more worn way, fractured less beat-driven samples.
The video that was played along with Jacaszek included lots of slowed down water images and some forests shots but also some bad cg effects and cartoony figures with Afteraffects fliters applied to them.
3) Kim Cascone
In the booklet that accompanied the festical was a good four pages of bio and rumination from Kim Cascone. In it he goes through his history with meditation and developing “heightened awareness” especially w/r/t listening. It even includes a series of exercises for you the listener to go through. I have to say that while I’m sympathetic to his goals here I can’t help but wonder if it is perhaps not better to just let the listener find one’s own way there? It didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the performance, though this, along with his introduction of the piece as “aural meditation”, did add a ponderousness to it that I do not think is inherent to the sounds. Cascone sat in the very middle of the surround sound speaker setup which also included a huge sub-woofer right in the middle of the room. Equipped with just a laptop and mixer he played for about 30 minutes in the dark with no video playing. We were instructed to sit with our eyes closed and focus on our breath which I did. He also told us that since this wasn’t really music there was no need to applaud at the end. The sounds were all beating tones at first pretty intense and then of varying intensities as the sounds shifted. Typically he’d pick a pattern, which all resolved itself in your head into hyper-rythmic oscillations, sometimes with higher pitched stuff seeming to swirl about at an upper level, other times just a single repeated sound. This he’d let play out for a decent amount of time, at least five minutes I’d say – this would be about six different sounds over the thirty minutes which seems about right. There was definitely those interesting physical sensations of vibrating in the ear that you get with these acoustic experiments. I agree with his assessment that it’s not really music per se – that is he was more or less just presenting one acoustical phenomenon after another – but it was fascinating and completely engaging. It just being thirty minutes was also a wise choice; too much might get tedious and this seemed just the right amount to keep one interested and engaged the whole time. Good stuff and while not a very effective aid to meditation IMO (the highly rhythmic nature tends to force you into a pattern that is contrary to natural breathing, which rather undermines the “focus on breath” aspect) it was a good focusing experience. It probably would have been aurally interesting to have been able to walk around during the performance but I certainly respected his setting of the events parameters.
Wandelweiser + Bozzini in Victoria, day 2
The second day of the Wandelweiser + Bozzini concerts was once again at Open Space in Victoria B.C. My report on the first day of concerts can be read here: Wandelweiser + Bozzini in Victoria, day 1 and my introduction to these concerts here: Wandelweiser in Victoria. Day 2 was another beautiful sunny day in Victoria which made for very pleasant concert environment with the sounds of the harbor – including some seriously baritone ship horns – and the pleasantly warm sunlight.
The afternoon concert featured two composers that I was completely unfamiliar with Thomas Stiegler from Germany and Daniel Brandes from right here in Victoria B.C.. Daniel, whom I talked to briefly before this concert (and also on Twitter) I would describe as a second generation Wandelweiser composer; a student of Antonie Beuger he definitely seems to be in that lineage. Of course this being the only piece of his I’ve heard can’t expound on his body of work, but from what I heard here I think that to be the case. Thomas Stieger, though his bio is rather brief on the Wandelweiser site, would seem to be an early member of the collective. He’s trained and works as a physician but his CV lists him winning a composition prize in 1997, not too long after the founding of Wandeweiser. It was nice to have an introduction to two new composers especially in a live context which seems to be the best way to experience this music.
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Wandelweiser + Bozzini at Open Space, Victoria B.C.
Quatuor Bozzini: Clemens Merkel, Stéphanie Bozzini, Isabelle Bozzini, Mira Benjamin
Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble: Jürg Frey, Thomas Stiegler, Antoine Beuger, Daniel Brandes
Daniel Brandes, Jürg Frey (obscured) Thomas Stiegler, Stéphanie Bozzini, Clemens Merkel, Isabelle Bozzini & Mira Benjamin
Concert #3 Sunday, June 9, 2013, 2:30 p.m.
1) Daniel Brandes a tenuous “we” (2013)
performers: Jürg Frey (clarinet), Antoine Beuger (flute), Thomas Stiegler (viola), Stefan Maier (guitar), Quatuor Bozzini (Clemens Merkel (violin), Stéphanie Bozzini (viola), Isabelle Bozzini (cello), Mira Benjamin (violin))
This piece was for the largest ensemble of the series and included the entire Bozzini Quartet along with Stiegler, Beuger and Frey and for his only performance of the weekend Stefan Maier playing electric guitar. Maier played his guitar with eBow generating long, sustained low tones. Likewise for the other instruments, with long drawn out, barely affected tones. There was also a set of text fragments, which were included in the series program, that were read out by the performers. The vocal performances were akin to that of the Beuger piece from yesterday, all murmured and hummed and rather self-consciously performed. Considering that Brandes was a student of Beuger this seems a pretty direct influence here. It also makes me wonder how deliberate that vocal performance style is. As I noted in my thoughts on the Beuger piece I’m not very taken by this type of vocal performances and this held for this piece. Otherwise I found the long, shifting instrumental lines rather pleasant and I found the piece quite accommodating to the sounds of seagulls and several conversations from the mezzanine down below. Especially at the times when the piece was purely instrumental – which as I assume the material of the piece was gone through at the performers desecration was arbitrary – did it seem to almost provide a background “wash” for the compelling exterior sounds.
Here’s a selection of the text fragments used in the piece:
1. nobody else could hope, except for those who grieve
3. enter the silence again, in the midst of words
4. loss has made a tenuous “We” of us all
9. only a poem could bring the grief to notice. the poem, so urgent and so fragile
2) Thomas Stiegler
Gelbe Birne III (2008) (violin, clarinet, violoncello)
Treibgut 1/2 (2011) (violin, violoncello)
Gelbe Birne VI (2013) (string quartet, world premiere)
Und.Ging.Außen.Vorüber (I) – for 3 voices and 3 radios (2005)
Performers: The first three pieces performed by Quatuor Bozzini and subsets
Und.Ging,Außen.Vorüber (I) – for 3 voices and 3 radios (2005) performed by Jürg Frey (voice), Antoine Beuger (voice), Thomas Stiegler (voice)
The rest of the afternoon program was pieces by Thomas Stiegler. These were all very short except for the last two. I should note that the program lists these pieces in a different order (the string quartet first) but according to my recollection (and notes) the string quartet, which was the longest of all the pieces was final piece before the piece for 3 voices. My notes weren’t very good for this part of the concert, which I’ll replicate here:
• The first piece rather pointillistic and very short < 100 notes
• The second piece made me think of Lachenman with it’s scratchy extended techniques and rather staccato style. Again a short piece only a few minutes.
• Quartet long, vibrato-less drones that went on for a long time and unraveled at the end with rapid dry bowing and then an abrupt simultaneous end.
• Frey, Stiegler, Beuger – each reading fragments of words and such in German. Frey seemed to be almost just reading syllables and Beuger repeated single words and in the middle Stiegler The speakers were then joined by the titular 3 radios toward the end, which were playing randomly tuned Victoria stations – mostly pop music. The speakers kept it up in the same fashion they had been reading, though a bit haggard at this point.
I have to admit I wasn’t taken by the short pieces, or by the text piece. I did enjoy the longer string quartet quite a bit. It was rather drone-y with a single note played by the players in an unaffected style. This continued for a long time varied only by subtly beating tones until the last minute or so where they shifted to these rapid shorter attacks and it had the feeling of coming apart at the seems and then suddenly ending. Really interesting piece and one the fit into the space really well.
Clemens Merkel, Stéphanie Bozzini, Isabelle Bozzini & Mira Benjamin
Concert #4 Sunday, June 9, 2013, 8:00 p.m.
1) Antoine Beuger little more than a whisper (2010)
Performers: Jürg Frey (Clarinet) & Antoine Beuger (flute)
A primarily soft, gentle piece that structurally seemed rather call and response, that is they seemed to play in reaction to each other. In this it seemed like some Christian Wolff pieces I’m familiar with where the instructions are that your options are informed by what you are hearing from your partners in the performance. The sounds were mostly rather short tones with the occasional scales and a small amount of extended technique – tongue clicks and over-breathing and the like. There was one or two slightly loud bits, that is to say louder than the overall softness, that seemed to be in reaction to something the other had done. There’d be something from say Jürg and you’d see a slightly quizzical expression from Antoine which he’d respond with something that would slip into slightly louder territory. Really engaging and charming piece.
Antoine Beuger little more than a whisper score
After the concerts I took a peek at the score and it did seem to have the elements of interaction that I sensed there. I took a (bad) cameraphone picture of it which if you squint hard enough you might be able to make out some of. But the instructions are that the performers alternate sounds, they should be uniformly soft and the that alternated sounds should constitute a phrase. I like the instruction that between the phrases there should be “some silence to allowing the previous phrase to resonate in memory“.
2) Jürg Frey Streichquartett 3 (2010-12)
Performers: Quatuor Bozzini (Clemens Merkel (violin), Stéphanie Bozzini (viola), Isabelle Bozzini (cello), Mira Benjamin(violin))
The final piece of the concert series was a string quartet from Jürg Frey. Now I should note that in my initial introduction to the Wandelweiser Ensemble one of the recordings I listened to was Frey’s String Quartet Disc on Edition Wandelweiser Records and I didn’t care for it at all. While I have gotten into the works of many other Wandelweiser composers (Pisaro and Beuger especially) I’d really not delved much further into Frey’s works. In this concert series it was his pieces that I enjoyed the most (along with the Pisaro) and was the most revelatory to me. So I was quite interested to hear this String Quartet – would it be how I recalled his earlier ones, or more in line with the piece of his I’d heard the day before? The piece was rather Feldman-like sharing his penchant for beginning and ending abruptly, utilizing lots of unison playing and was of course overall soft but not extremely so. I found this to be a nice piece and found it to be another highlight of the weekend. While not as long as a late Feldman piece – it was around 30 minutes perhaps – it did have several different sections to it. Along with the aforementioned unison play there was some solo violin from Clemens Merkel and some very dry rustling playing from the whole group. There were some sections that had a melancholy melodic feel, reminding me a bit of Mihaly Vig’s Werckmeister Harmonies score. I felt it was of a nice length, deliberately paced throughout with no real dramatic moments. I wouldn’t have complained if it had been a longer even.
And that was that. Another weekend of music done and as with all concert series it had pieces I enjoyed more than others. But it is always welcome to get to hear new pieces from new composers especially in a live situation. Nothing I felt was horrible or hard to sit through or anything like that – some things were just more to my taste than others. With the nature of the entire series even for pieces that didn’t grab me it was was pleasant in context to the surroundings and environmental sounds. It was a lovely weekend in Victoria and it was great to be introduced to Open Space, which I am sure I will be attending concerts at again.
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Christopher Reiche, Daniel Brandes & Thomas Stiegler
There was again a Q&A following the afternoon concert this time with Daniel Brandes and Thomas Stiegler again hosted by Christopher Reiche of Open Space. It was again mostly questions from the audience with a few from Reiche. I had a harder time transcribing this one but I’ll again paste in what I was able to jot down again with a few corrections, clarifications and not much commentary.
Day 2 Q & A
? About the radio
Stiegler – Talked about the text, but I missed most of it. From artists with disabilities.
? about the durations
Stiegler – First couple pieces short and commissions, The quartet was written fast about a woman who died at 40. Put together with other short pieces.
Brandes – His piece not of fixed duration includes the instruction ‘duration: ends somehow’ he works with Beuger and he also had a piece with that direction. This Music is supposed to be immersive and a duration would impose he felt.
Clemens Merkel (Bozzini violinist) – mentioned they just recently replaced two short pieces with the long Stiegler quartet which begins with sustained Es.
? a subversive performer could refuse to let the peice end, would at not be in the spirit of the music?
Brandes – I find this peculiar notion of the subversive performer; would have to dislike me a lot to go to all the trouble. It’s about creating a sense of community of navigating this space together. Questions arise of how to begin, how to end how to play together. If players love the piece thy will find a way to end. (Long pause)
? why do you choose the specific material?
Stiegler – A piece without pitches (the long quartet IIRC) this was inspired by seeing a similar piece at a festival.
? community keeps coming up. How to foster that beyond the concert space
It’s music playing or listening teaches us something if you are sensitive to the situation, about gentleness, caring and such.
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All my photos from the concerts can be found here: Wandelweiser + Bozzini photoset on Flickr
Wandelweiser + Bozzini in Victoria, day 1
Open Space is pretty much right in the thick of a prime tourist zone Victoria, British Columbia and is a rectangular, bright, acoustically sound space. Really perfect venue for this kind of music in that some sounds drifted in from outside, but it wasn’t all just traffic. A skylight above the performance area let in natural light and the occasional pop’s and groans as it expanded in the sun. Most striking was Wendy Hough‘s Wall Drawing, which stretched across the entire back wall forming a hypnotic backdrop. A semi-cicle of chairs in two long rows was setup for the afternoon concerts and a third row added dynamically as the evening shows filled up. A really good crowd I though and the Open Space music director told me that they averaged around 25 people for most of their new music events. Pretty impressive – when I saw fellow Wandelweiser composer Micheal Pisaro in Seattle, at a venue that is basically the Seattle’s equivalent to Open Space there was only a handful of people in attendance.
The concert series was over two days with an afternoon concert, followed by a Q&A, then an evening concert. If you attended all four concerts, as I did, you were able to hear 12 pieces from 6 different composers. I’ve listened to various Wandelweiser composers for maybe 5-6 years now and just like everything certain things appeals to me more than others. There is also a lot of material from this collective which has been active for more than 15 years now and I’ve hardly heard it all. So for me when discussing composed pieces the historical context, both of the composers own compositional history as well as the lineage in which they are situated is really key. Since I feel that I can only provide limited insight in that vein here I am going to mostly try to sketch out the overall nature of the pieces. I should also add that I don’t feel that a blow-by-blow description of this kind of music is that useful. In the main without actually analyzing the piece I feel that is of limited utility and can actually be misleading. Likewise focusing too much on the environment I think can just be a laundry list and also push understanding of the piece to specifics that undermine the intention. That is to say that these pieces in general are accepting of these sounds, but not reliant on the specifics that you heard. This may seem like I’m leaving little to write about but really I’ll talk about all of these aspects, but just in passing without trying to claim any sort of notion of completeness.
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Wandelweiser + Bozzini at Open Space, Victoria B.C.
Quatuor Bozzini: Clemens Merkel, Stéphanie Bozzini, Isabelle Bozzini, Mira Benjamin
Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble: Jürg Frey, Thomas Stiegler, Antoine Beuger, Daniel Brandes
Antoine Beuger & Jürg Frey
Concert #1 Saturday, June 8, 2013, 2:30 p.m.
1) Jürg Frey Canones incerti (2010)
performers: Jürg Frey (clarinet) & Antoine Beuger (flute)
The piece was all held tones with occasional ascending and descending runs. There was beating tones at times between the flute and clarinet that reminded me a bit of The International Nothing. But with the different tonality of the flute and clarinet as opposed to two clarinets this was richer and more engaging in my opinion. The piece was really nicely paced; not overly spacious but not hurried or at all busy. Overall it was very pretty and it’s softness welcomed the sound of seagulls, the occasional passing pedestrian and motor vehicle. A telephone rang twice in the Open Space office and at the end in the concert venue itself. I’m pretty sure these were unintentional (they occurred the next day) but I thought fitted in nicely with what could be thought of as an overly pretty piece. While that obviously wouldn’t happen at every performance, the equivalent certainly could. This was maybe my favorite piece of the series.
2) Antoine Beuger méditations poétiques sur “quelque chose dàutre” (2012)
performers: Jürg Frey (clarinet), Antoine Beuger (flute), Thomas Stiegler (viola), Clemens Merkel (violin) & Mira Benhamin (violin)
The piece began with Beuger introducing the piece as being based on text fragments from five philosophers. He then read text fragments that the piece utilizes. One immediately makes note that the quintet includes a muscian as representative for each philosopher. Following the reading each performer then clearly worked though a set of material at their own discretion and with each ending at different times. They mumbled and chant/sang bits of the text which were all in French. This seemed very self conscious to me but I should note is not really generally too my taste. It is certainly in the lineage of all of John Cage’s text pieces which frankly I’m pretty mixed on, but can get into a times. So I don’t write off this entire area but I feel that you have to be completely committed: no one would deny that Cage threw himself wholeheartedly into his text performances. Apart from the text readings the played pitches were nice, mixing a variety of traditional tonal playing along with faint, dusty scraping of strings at times. Each performer stopped after they worked through their material and the performance concluded with just Frey on the clarinet.
Concert #2 Saturday, June 8, 2013, 8:00 p.m.
1) Michael Pisaro – asleep, river, bells, chords (2009)
performers: Jürg Frey (clarinet), Antoine Beuger (flute), Clemens Merkel (violin), Stéphanie Bozzini (viola) + Field Recordings
The field recordings seemed to be of a bus stop with cars, birds, various voices and the busses pulling in (un)loading and pulling out. The recording was rather loud and included within it various synthetic tones and sine waves. The strings mostly played very quiet long dry strokes. The flute and clarinet petty much blended right in with the field recording but also was long held soft ntes. the peice is interacting tones and incidental sounds. I really enjoyed this piece, especially the balance between the field recording, additional natural sounds from outside the venue, the pre-recorded sounds seamlessly blending in and then the nearly inaudible classical instrumentation. This is clearly in the same family as asleep, street, pipes, tones the recording of which was put out on the Gravity Wave label. In the linked blog post he describes how he put together the recording used for that piece from snippets of pipe organ, vocal pieces, sine waves and field recordings. While we don’t have the specifics for this piece it clearly is in the same style but in my opinion the live performance aspect works better. I especially appreciated the bowed strings here but I also think that the higher tones of the clarinet and flute also worked really well. This piece was right up there among my favorites from this series and was happy this was part of the repertoire as Pisaro was the only Wandelweiser composer not present from whom a work was performed.
2) Martin Arnold – Waltz Organum (2012)
performers: Jürg Frey (clarinet), Quatuor Bozzini (Clemens Merkel (violin), Stéphanie Bozzini (viola), Isabelle Bozzini (cello), Mira Benjamin(violin))
This was a more standard new music peice for string quartet and clarinet from a Canadian composer not associated with the Wandelweiser collective. The art supporting agencies always require works from Canadians to get grants and this piece I presume was at least present for that reason. That being said it was okay if nothing very remarkable. It was mostly muted strings, playing mostly long tones rather dry, without vibrato. It was all very upper register in the strings and the clarinet also was rather high and quiet. The cello often played percussively by bouncing the bow on the strings. The piece was constructed from several rather disparate, movements giving it a rather episodic feel. They reorganized the performers and their setup for the different combinations: one movement was violin and cello only and IIRC at least one was the quintet and then various trios.
Antoine Beuger, Jürg Frey & Christopher Reiche
There was a Q&A with Jürg Frey and Antoine Beuger following the afternoon concert hosted Christopher Reiche of Open Space. It was mostly questions from the audience with a few from Reiche. I sort of transcribed this the best I could so I thought I’d just paste that here at the end of this post with a few corrections, clarifications but not much commentary.
Day 1 Q & A
? how did you all meet?
(This was how Bozzini met the Wandelweiser group and I didn’t record the answer)
? Political importance; music displays passivity yet is confident.
Frey – my music doesn’t work when it’s loud, doesn’t make sense. When I want it to be loud I composer explicitly for trumpets and trombones because they are naturally loud. When it’s quiet the sound is primary, the musician doesn’t have to push it. When I want a loud piece I use brass or a whole orchestra. It’s not pushing it to be loud; it just is loud.
Beuger – (specifically, addressing the political part of the question) Music always has an inherent political meaning, about how we deal with each other. In a piece of music you are dealing with each other in a specific way. I hope musical situations can include a promise, about how the world could be, if we would deal with each with a lot of care and attention as per the peice they played.
Frey – why should I shout through the notes when I can speak? I try to deal with them in similar way as I’d try to deal with my friends. Try to find out what the notes want to do. If they are in balance (with himself) no need to shout.
? Do you compose in real time?
Frey- These two pieces have no fixed duration. You have to have security with the situation. It can take a long time.
? w/r/t performer choice. Christopher Reiche relayed a bit of advice a teach had given him: Imagine the worst possible interpretation of a piece and if you are okay with that than your notation is okay.
Beuger – This is a bad piece of advice. As composers we have to understained that we are not making the music it is the musicians who do. At its best it is a collaboration. My job is to have a relation of trust with those who play my music. I try to create a situation in which the musicians can feel comfortable. It is an ethical problem. If the players can feel at ease and be attentive to what they are doing and pay attention to each other then I’ve done my job, that is the quality in the composition. There has been more and more mistrust of the last 200 years between musician and composer. That is not what notation is or should be about.
Frey – What is the worst? What is possible for a piece? (he then relayed a story about Andrew Lee playing his piano pieces which he didn’t like at first. The realized at Lee played it as it was written and didn’t insert himself into it, which Frey assumes and generally prefers).
? what constitutes a good or accurate performance? What has to be there?
Beuger – no such thing as an accurate performance with my scores. I just sit and listen and the music either pleases me or not. It’s hard to say if ere is a good or bad performance. That is what we are writing music for, for the performance.
? So you think of yourself as more of a catalyst?
Beuger – Music is a practice, part of a culture a way of doing things. Celebrating life. Think of it like going to a Blues Pub – you go for being in that experience. What we are doing is similar.
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All my photos from the concerts can be found here: Wandelweiser + Bozzini photoset on Flickr
Wandelweiser in Victoria
So I am heading up north to Victoria B.C. in Canada to catch a two day concert series of Wandelweiser compositions. The Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble (Jürg Frey, Thomas Stiegler, Antoine Beuger, Daniel Brandes) will be performing several pieces as will be Quatuor Bozzini (Clemens Merkel, Stéphanie Bozzini, Isabelle Bozzini, Mira Benjamin). Should be a good time and I always love visiting Victoria. If any readers of the blog are going to likewise be in attendance (and I certainly encourage any in the region to make the attempt) do say “hi”. I’ll put in the full details on the concert, venue and the like from the event webpage below.
Concert Series Info
Event: Wandelweiser + Bozzini
Artists: Quatuor Bozzini (Clemens Merkel, Stéphanie Bozzini, Isabelle Bozzini, Mira Benjamin), Wandelweiser Komponisten Ensemble (Jürg Frey, Thomas Stiegler, Antoine Beuger, Daniel Brandes)
Place: Open Space, 510 Fort Street, 2nd Floor
Concert Programs
Concert #1 Saturday, June 8, 2013, 2:30 p.m.
Jürg Frey – Canones incerti (2010)
Antoine Beuger – méditations poétiques sur “quelque chose dàutre” (2012)
Concert #2 Saturday, June 8, 2013, 8:00 p.m.
Michael Pisaro – asleep, river, bells, chords (2009)
Martin Arnold – Waltz Organum (2012)
Concert #3 Sunday, June 9, 2013, 2:30 p.m.
Daniel Brandes – a tenuous “we” (2013)
Thomas Stiegler – Und.Ging,Außen.Vorüber (IV)- for string quartet (2007)
Thomas Stiegler – Gelbe Birne III (2008)
Thomas Stiegler – Treibgut 1/2 (2011)
Thomas Stiegler – Gelbe Birne I (2007)
Thomas Stiegler – Und.Ging,Außen.Vorüber (I)- for 3 voices and 3 radios (2005)
Concert #4 Sunday, June 9, 2013, 8:00 p.m.
Antoine Beuger – little more than a whisper (2010)
Jürg Frey – Streichquartett 3 (2010-12)
The Art of David Tudor preview
The Art of David Tudor is a new 7 CD boxed set released from the ever great New World Records. The most exciting release IMO since their epic Music for Merce. Of course while there was much music of interest to me on Music for Merce it was the David Tudor pieces, especially the unreleased material, that was particularly of interest. In my series of posts covering that box set I time and time again bemoaned that the bulk of the Tudor pieces were only excerpts and more than once mentioned that there should be a boxed set of his pieces. Miraculously New World has provided. This set can now be ordered, though I’m not sure if it’s in anybodies hands yet. It will apparently be available for download on at least iTunes though the link is not currently active. However the liner notes for the set are currently available (major props to New World for putting these online – makes quotes and such from them a lot easier) and I’ve given it a looksee. So before I have this set in hand let us consider what we are going to be getting.
The Art of David Tudor
Variations II (John Cage)
For 1, 2, or 3 People (Christian Wolff)
Bandoneon ! (A Combine) (David Tudor)
Anima Pepsi (David Tudor)
Pepsibird (David Tudor)
Pepscillator (David Tudor)
Mesostics re Merce Cunningham/Untitled (John Cage, David Tudor)
Weatherings (David Tudor)
Phonemes (David Tudor)
Rainforest IV (David Tudor)
Webwork (David Tudor)
Rainforest IV (David Tudor)
Virtual Focus (David Tudor)
Neural Network Plus (David Tudor)
Quite a few of these pieces have been previously released either in whole or in excerpt. But these pieces were performed live and often performed with the Merce Cunnigham Dance Company or in concerts and due to the nature of live electronics can be quite variable. So in the cases where there are new performances or different versions it is certainly a cause for celebration. The full versions of the pieces released only in excerpts are of course especially welcome. Let us now consider each of these pieces in brief.
Variations II can be heard on the David Tudor Edition RZ set plus a different version on vol. 1 of the John Cage Shock set from EM Records, Edition Omega Point. This version is from the ONCE Festival and is I believe a third recording of the piece. I’m all for more versions of this piece as they all vary due to the nature of working with feedback.
For 1, 2, or 3 People is currently available on Edition RZ’s Christian Wolff set as well as an excerpt on the Music for Merce set. These two versions are the same IIRC and this one is listed as also from tour with the Merce Cunningham Dance company. So could be the same one or a different performance.
Bandoneon ! (A Combine) This has been released in excerpt on the DVD documentary series on the E.A.T. 9 Evenings series. This is not listed here as an excerpt but at just over 14 minutes it almost certainly is. In my review of the DVD I note that the length of the performance is not known, but I do go into the available data. This is a longer excerpt than found on the DVD by about 5 minutes which is welcome, but one still awaits the full piece.
Anima Pepsi was released on the album Live Electronic Music (Electronic Music Foundation) and this appears to be the same version (both are 23’37” which is a pretty good clue).
Pepsibird & Pepscillator These two pieces were along with Anima Pepsi were recorded at Recorded in the Pepsi Pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan but only Anima Pepsi has been released. So these are two new tracks that presumably will be in a similar vein of Anima Pepsi.
Mesostics re Merce Cunningham/Untitled Untitled, a definitive Tudor composition, has been released in a couple of forms but was originally performed with John Cage’s vocal performance of Mesostics re Merce Cunningham. As far as I know this version has not been released (a version with Takehisa Kosugi on vocals is on the album Three Works For Live Electronics released by Lovely Music).
Weatherings This was released in excerpt on the Music for Merce set and assuming this is an entire performance, this would be the first complete recording of this piece.
Phonemes This was released in excerpt on the Music for Merce set and a complete version can be found on Three Works For Live Electronics released by Lovely Music. However this is a full live performance of the piece, whereas the Three Works For Live Electronics version is a layered version of many recordings. So this will be a full, live, single version which is a welcome addition to the recordings of this piece.
Rainforest IV There are two versions of Rainforest IV on this set both credited to Composers Inside Electronics during the period when Tudor was performing with them (they are still a going concern). As Rainforest IV is a sculpture based piece that was constructed anew on numerous occasions and thus was often different this is certainly justified. However the Rainforest pieces are of course Tudor’s most well know and most well documented. Mode has a disc with Rainforest IV (as well as Rainforest I) on it and there was an German instance of the installation in 1980 which has been released on an LP by Edition Block and on CD by Lovely. One of the versions of on this set is this German installation the other from a Stockholm version. While most likely the German versions are all from the same source it could be a different excerpt or even a different recording. The Stockholm one appears to be a new release.
Webwork – This was presented in excerpt form on Music for Merce so a complete performance is of course highly anticipated. This has only otherwise been released as a 7? excerpt on the John Cage tribute CD A Chance Operation.
Virtual Focus This very interesting piece excerpted on Music for Merce so a complete performance is definitely a huge plus here. There has otherwise been unreleased barring a 3? of excerpt on Musicworks 73.
Neural Network Plus Again excerpted on Music for Merce but in this set a whole disc is dedicated to a 55″ version. While Lovely Music has put out a double CD of the related Neural Sythesis pieces and Atonal Records put out a disc split between Neural Synthesis No.2 and a Cage piece this is the only recording of Neural Network Plus which includes Kosugi on violin. Even the extract was intense and wild so really can’t wait for this complete performance
Basically the pieces from Expo ’70 are the most novel of the set but the complete performances of the later live electronics pieces are of course the big draw. There is still quite a bit from David Tudor’s oeuvre that is still unavailable. His first piece, Fluorescent Sound is of course the first one that springs to mind (though perhaps no recording exists) but just scan through his list of compositions on DavidTudor.org and you can see that many are not represented here or anywhere. One hopes that of those that recordings exist that some day these will come out in some form. With all the variation and iteration in his live performances one hopes that in the future these will all be available for download. This is I think the direction that any music that is so varied in performance needs to. It is a shame that these recordings just languish in vaults. Still I can’t wait to get this set and and it is a vital edition to the David Tudor legacy. I commend New World for putting it out and will write more here once I’ve had a chance to absorb it.
A Spiral Cage 
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