Filed under: Art, Music by Ben.H
No Comments »
Please Mister Please
Thursday 7 January 2010
Henry Brant, “The Fourth Millennium” (1963). American Brass Quintet.
(9’16”, 12.44 MB, mp3)
(9’16”, 12.44 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
No Comments »
This Way to the Miracle
Thursday 7 January 2010
Filed under: Art, London by Ben.H
No Comments »
Mystery Glass Pieces
Tuesday 5 January 2010
The rather wonderful Other Minds Archive has put up a concert by Philip Glass in San Jose from 1978:
This program include [sic] a number of pieces for organ, written in Glass’ trademark minimalist style, as well as a piece for orchestra and electronics.
You may have noticed that the wording of that sentence is a little bit slippery. The information page for this recording is of no real help, listing an “unidentified piece for orchestra and electronics” by Philip Glass, followed by four “unidentified pieces” for organ, also by Glass.
I find it hard to believe that the first piece is by Glass at all – in that style, for those instruments – so both what it is and who wrote it are mysteries to me. The organ pieces are obviously Glass: Music In Contrary Motion, “Bed” and “Knee Play 4” from Einstein on the Beach, Fourth Series, Part 2 (aka Dance No.2), and, and….
What the hell is that second piece? None of the descriptions in the list of compositions on Glass’ website seem to fit. Is this a solo arrangement of a piece I’ve never heard, or some of his theatre music? It’s too cold to go out to the library, a few minutes’ googling was no help at all, and listening to free samples of likely candidates on Amazon drew a blank.
Here are excerpts from the two mystery pieces:
- unknown piece probably not by Philip Glass, halfway through its 24-minute duration
- unknown organ piece by Philip Glass, start of a 13-minute performance
I presume the organ is being played by Glass himself. Having grown up on his glossy studio productions from the 1980s, it’s sort of nice to hear him hitting all those bum notes here.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
2 Comments »
New Subscription Feed Redirection
Thursday 31 December 2009
I am trying to seamlessly redirect my blog’s feed from its old address (http://cookylamoo.com/boringlikeadrill/atom.xml) to its new one (http://feeds.feedburner.com/BoringLikeADrillBlog). You can update your own settings if you wish, but it should soon be redirecting automatically, if I’ve figured it out right.
Filed under: Self-promotion by Ben.H
No Comments »
An Old Look for a New Year
Thursday 31 December 2009
Sorry about the mess. I spent the xmas break moving the blog from Blogger to WordPress (like you care) and trying to get the layout into some coherent, compatible shape. It still needs some tweaking and there are probably some dud links around the place, so please email me if you notice anything particularly ugly or broken.
Filed under: Self-promotion by Ben.H
No Comments »
Please Mister Please
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Jackson 5, “One More Chance” (1970).
(3’01”, 3.45 MB, mp3)
(3’01”, 3.45 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
No Comments »
Ignorance achieves wonders.
Sunday 20 December 2009
I’d like to apologise for a fundamental error in my review of the Crumb Total Immersion day. I mistakenly referred to the composer as George Crumb throughout. George Crumb is, of course, the famous cartoonist. The composer’s name is Robert Crumb, as correctly identified by BBC Radio 3.
It’s good to see Radio 3 diligently pursuing its remit to “inform and educate the audience about music and culture”, although when you try to follow the BBC’s own link to its Radio 3 website it in fact takes to you BBC Three, a television station dedicated to programmes like Bashing Booze Birds and Britain’s Most Embarrassing Pets.
There seems to be a webmonkey at the Beeb who gets easily confused over names.
Filed under: Music, Stupidity by Ben.H
No Comments »
Can’t do nothin’ for ya, man.
Wednesday 16 December 2009
Filed under: Art by Ben.H
No Comments »
Please Mister Please
Tuesday 15 December 2009
Elliott Carter, “Esprit Rude / Esprit Doux” (1985). Sophie Cherrier, flute; André Trouttet, clarinet.
(4’52”, 7.68 MB, mp3)
(4’52”, 7.68 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
No Comments »
Total Immersion: George Crumb
Monday 14 December 2009
George Crumb turned eighty in October, and so was dragged across the Atlantic for the BBC to make a fuss of him for one day of the year. Actually, he probably came willingly, as the night concluded with what must be a rare concert of his orchestral music. He seemed pretty cheerful, seated up in the stalls doing that Rat Pack style double-pointing to the performers at the end of each piece.
I wrote a bit about Crumb’s music earlier in the year after hearing the Nash Ensemble perform it at the Proms:
Crumb’s music really needs to be heard live to appreciate it, not only for the theatrical elements of its performance, or for the spatial placement of sounds (more than once the musicians had to relocate from the stage to one of the balconies to achieve an elusive, distant quality to their sound), but for the subtlety and complexity of the sounds he specifies.
The Proms gig included Claire Booth singing Ancient Voices of Children, also played here by the Guildhall ensemble, with the soprano Anna Patalong (and a real, live boy this time), in between Joanna MacGregor playing the piano works A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 and Volume 1 of Makrokosmos.
The last time I heard Makrokosmos it was part of an ill-judged mix of music and visuals by Michael Kieran Harvey. Witnessing it performed again reminded me the extent to which Crumb’s music seems to be held together almost by the sheer force of his personality, and how dependent it is on musicians to hold the greater purpose of its disparate elements in focus. MacGregor’s performance was much less theatrical (or histrionic) than Harvey’s, but found and sustained the drama in the music.
The evening gig was a concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Crumb’s orchestral music – in fact the only three mature orchestral works he has written – culminating in the massive Star-Child. Pure logistical difficulties aside, it seems clear why Crumb tends to keep his music on a more intimate scale. The often episodic nature of his music can be difficult for such a large group of musicians to follow without losing momentum.
The 1967 piece Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II) is a processional of varying sounds and textures produced by small, discrete groups within the orchestra, to the extent of moving some of the percussionists and brass players on, off, and across the stage in various configurations. In effect, Crumb was attempting to work with the orchestra to his usual scale, while taking advantage of the wider pallette of available sounds. The slow choreography of the musician’s movements added a theatrical, ritualistic aspect that was only slightly more awkward in reality than it doubtless was in the imagination.
A Haunted Landscape (1984) must be more successful in combining all the distinctive facets of Crumb’s music into a seamless whole, because I always remember it as being more conventional than it really is. On the other hand, Star-Child (1977) works hard to present a semblance of cohesiveness between its seven continuous sections. The piece is often referred to as Ivesian, and amongst the many parallels you could make out were the cosmic scope of the music, and its seemingly rough-hewn structure.
The entire 35 or so minutes is suspended from a repeated “music of the spheres” played by the string section throughout, oblivious to all the other goings-on; they form a separate orchestra, with their own conductor. The remaining sections of the orchestra, plus a truckload of extra percussion, half-a-dozen brass players in the balcony, a male speaking choir armed with handbells, and two children’s choirs, require between one and three conductors between them to keep everything together, depending on the music’s complexity. Oh, and there’s a Vox Clamans In Deserto recited antiphonally between a soprano and a trombonist.
Star-Child boldly reaches for profundity with its Latin texts and massed voices and bells, and for once Crumb uses the full force of the orchestra for emphatic, dramatic power. It’s an anomaly in Crumb’s canon, the way he uses brute force and awe to move his audience here, particularly in the apocalyptic middle sections. Thankfully his musical allusions never get too overt or too literary, but the piece is really left to stand or fall on the message Crumb wishes it to convey. The performance itself couldn’t be faulted, but in experiencing it I felt like I was witnessing an attempt to make manifest a grand vision best realised in the imagination, brought to life as best as one can.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
Tags: George Crumb
No Comments »
There is no Tooth Fairy, there is only Tooth Jesus.
Sunday 13 December 2009
Sorry I haven’t written this week. My brain took a few days off after seeing a dentist whose idea of relaxing ambience in the surgery was a very loud radio tuned to an evangelical christian station broadcasting an emphatic sermon about Hell. I’d have asked her to turn it off but really you don’t argue with a woman holding a drill to your molars.
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
No Comments »
Please Mister Please
Monday 7 December 2009
Boredoms, “Shock City” (1994).
(4’43”, 4.18 MB, mp3)
(4’43”, 4.18 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
No Comments »
Greetings from a non-denominational robin
Monday 7 December 2009
I got so excited about the George Crumb Total Immersion day over the weekend I broke a tooth. While I recuperate and write up the contrasting concerts (including a rare chance to hear an evening of Crumb’s orchestral music), here’s a picture of a friendly robin who was hanging around the chapel when I last walked through Abney Park.
Filed under: London by Ben.H
No Comments »
The latest thrilling dispatch from my crazy dream world.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Last night I dreamt I trimmed my fingernails. There were some minor complications, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
