Electronic Music

[Joseph K]

Tomorrow we have Xenakis's Orient-Occident, which I guess nobody will be interested in , and music by Beatriz Ferreyra and Jean-Claude Risset.

Hope this concert went well, FWIW, and thanks for the report on the Rampazzi/Nono concert... I must check out A floresta...

[Quarky]

Electronic music...who needs it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2BWrmNhyXU

Pierre Henry would have taken issue with that! ::

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsb1w-3iFa8 (the first few minutes)

[Joseph K]

Still not yet checked out A Floresta - must do that today...

But (yet another ) shout out to Barrett & Zaric's Mirage album which I've just played from suma through to the last song sphinx, played via the bandcamp app on my phone through a mini speaker while I was emptying the dishwasher, continued upstairs after I'd finished that. I think suma is really profound, particular moments being a sequence of harp chords during the last two minutes which is just sublime, and the piece is generally sparkling and iridescent with fascinating rhythmical processes and whose pitch structure is so supremely realised that gives such great expressive import to the aforementioned sequence of chords which feels inevitable, like it's goal-directed almost, which is not something one generally associates with serial music (but which is here achieved without the slightest hint of nostalgia for any previous music).

[RichardB]

Thanks again JK! Nice to know it sounds like something through a phone and little speaker.

As for who needs electronic music, ardcarp... well, for a start, composers during 2020-21 whose work was denied its traditional performing outlets and who had for many years wondered what it would be like to concentrate on studio-based work for a while. Being one such person, I have to say I learned a great deal from the experience, which has served also to inspire the music for acoustic instruments/voices I've been working on since the second half of last year.

[Joseph K]

I'm enjoying Nono's A floresta... reminds me in certain respects of the last scene of Ferneyhough's Shadowtime - grand and haunting, but with more violence.

[RichardB]

There's a really interesting TV documentary about Nono with footage of him working with the vocalists in the studio, and of a live performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOBhArRVIC8

(It's in German but I think it's possible to get a lot out of it even if you don't follow the talking bits.)

[teamsaint]

There's a really interesting TV documentary about Nono with footage of him working with the vocalists in the studio, and of a live performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOBhArRVIC8

(It's in German but I think it's possible to get a lot out of it even if you don't follow the talking bits.)

Or there are Italian subtitles……..

[Joseph K]

Currently spinning FURT plus - equals, specifically, 'Solution C', the third track with saxophonist John Butcher - it's a good one.

Will stick the first disk of the complete Xenakis electroacoustic works on after, since as I've already said it's his centenary soon and plan to listen to all the Xenakis in my collection...

[Joseph K]

... the FURT disk has finished now. Even more than with the Xenakis orchestral works I listened to over the past week, I like to think it elicited quite a bit of 'WTF' reactions from my neighbours.

Not sure I'll listen to the first Xenakis electroacoustic works disk now though, I think my guitar beckons again...

[RichardB]

I like to think it elicited quite a bit of 'WTF' reactions from my neighbours.

(rubs hands together) Good, good...

I haven't heard that album myself for a long time. But returning to early electronic music, last Saturday we had the last in this academic year's series of Institute of Sonology concerts; most of it was music composed and performed by students, but a last minute addition to the programme was Kagel's 4-channel tape piece Transición I from 1960. I'm not sure anyone who didn't know would identify its composer, and that's partly because the way the WDR electronic music studio worked most of the time in that period was that a composer would provide a kind of blueprint for a piece, and it would then be realised with Gottfried Michael Koenig taking a leading role. With composers who weren't already experienced in studio possibilities, the result might end up sounding more like Koenig than the named composer, which is certainly true in this case - although the unpredictable way it evolves from one kind of texture to the next is a feature of Kagel's work in general, some of the sounds seem as if they could have been lifted directly from Koenig's Essay. It certainly doesn't have anything like the originality and excitement of Kontakte which was produced around the same time (also with Koenig's assistance, although here Stockhausen's own fluency with the studio was decisive). See what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqGobBhbSlg (The date of composition is given wrongly on the video!)

[Joseph K]

See what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqGobBhbSlg

I quite enjoyed it, thanks. I can't remember whether I've listened to Koenig's Essay before or not, though my response to the few things of his I've listened to has been lukewarm. Anyway, I've just put Essay on and I'm enjoying it and yes - similar sounds to Transición I.

edit - finished listening to Essay. Very good!

[Joseph K]

Will stick the first disk of the complete Xenakis electroacoustic works on after, since as I've already said it's his centenary soon and plan to listen to all the Xenakis in my collection...

I have this on now - which, in case anyone wondered, comprises Diamorphoses, Concret PH, Orient Occident and Bohor.

[RichardB]

I have this on now - which, in case anyone wondered, comprises Diamorphoses, Concret PH, Orient Occident and Bohor.

The first three are interesting enough in an etude-like way but Bohor is I think his first really original and powerful piece in the medium. It needs to be pretty loud though!

[Serial_Apologist]

The first three are interesting enough in an etude-like way but Bohor is I think his first really original and powerful piece in the medium. It needs to be pretty loud though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DODVNHukY0I

(I think "upstairs" are out tonight!)

[Joseph K]

The first three are interesting enough in an etude-like way but Bohor is I think his first really original and powerful piece in the medium. It needs to be pretty loud though!

It certainly is very powerful and original (I'll take your word for it where the latter is concerned, since my knowledge is not comprehensive) - I have it on now and it's extraordinary... what sound like glacial enormous organ chords form its basis but there are other fascinating layers, some of which give the impression of great speed and intricacy... once again I feel a juxtaposition of more noise-like sounds with more pitch-based ones (those organ chords) opens up and refreshes ones ears as to the possibilities of music...

edit - my description of the piece, although in response to RichardB, is not aimed at him but rather is aimed at persuading anyone who hasn't heard the piece to listen!