The wrong note school is back at last!

[Sydney Grew]

I have just been listening to - and watching - the first performance of a thing by a Mr. Nuorvala. It was played just this week by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by handsome young Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

http://yle.fi/aihe/tapahtuma/2014/05/16/friday-series-14

I found it fascinating because it makes use of a style new to me. That is to say, it uses an almost standard orchestra with its standard instruments, and it uses the normal range of tones which such instruments can produce - there are no creaky gates or plink plonks - and the basic harmonic language is late nineteenth-century; the only odd element is that this fine orchestra plays everything out of tune throughout. It is the first time I have heard a whole orchestra play intentionally out of tune. It is quite overwhelming! A new world of sound lies before us. Nevertheless I suspect that after just one further hearing I will not wish to return to the work for some while. The nerves, you know. Have a listen and a look and tell us what you think! The delectable and talented Miss Frang is also on the menu.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I tried clicking on Play, but only got a message to say the address was unavailable.

[edashtav]

J.I.T. = JUST IN TIME or JUST IN TUNE?

I tried clicking on Play, but only got a message to say the address was unavailable.

The link works for me and this piece sounds, at first, like a school orchestra turning its ill-tuned hands to the classical repertoire. But... I'm told that this piece is probably written in extended JUST intonation. Have a peep at part of a biographical sketch of its composer:

A notable variety of influences – microtonality, American minimalism, New Romanticism, popular music – has been regarded as a special feature of Nuorvala's idiom. Nuorvala’s works are often marked with frenzied rhythmic drive, and he favors elements and materials that both the mind and the body respond to. He finds these elements not only in old or new classical music but in various forms of urban popular music, such as the electronic music of modern dance clubs.

Nuorvala has composed chamber, orchestral and electronic works. 'Notturno urbano' for chamber orchestra (1996) resounds with urban night life and is one of his most popular works that numerous orchestras have performed. The Clarinet Concerto (1998) contains references to jazz, film music, Minimalism and electronic dance music. The strong rhythmic element is also present in the 1995 'Kellarisinfonia' ('Garage Symphony'), scored for a big-band-like ensemble, as well as in more recent works, such as the 'Boost' (2009) for cello and analogue monosynth. The Second String Quartet (1997) includes some of Nuorvala’s most romantically soaring pages. During recent years Nuorvala has created the music and sounds for several plays at the Finnish National Theatre, in addition to writing an opera (Flash Flash, 2005) based on the life of Andy Warhol (libretto: Juha Siltanen). Starting from the 2000's, Nuorvala has written his most of his music in alternative tuning systems (mainly in the system known as Extended Just Intonation).[/I]

Bring it on!

[Quarky]

I tried clicking on Play, but only got a message to say the address was unavailable.

It worked for me!

.....A sight more interesting than H&N's Max Richter's Memory House!

[amateur51]

The link works for me and this piece sounds, at first, like a school orchestra turning its ill-tuned hands to the classical repertoire. But... I'm told that this piece is probably written in extended JUST intonation. Have a peep at part of a biographical sketch of its composer:

A notable variety of influences – microtonality, American minimalism, New Romanticism, popular music – has been regarded as a special feature of Nuorvala's idiom. Nuorvala’s works are often marked with frenzied rhythmic drive, and he favors elements and materials that both the mind and the body respond to. He finds these elements not only in old or new classical music but in various forms of urban popular music, such as the electronic music of modern dance clubs.

Nuorvala has composed chamber, orchestral and electronic works. 'Notturno urbano' for chamber orchestra (1996) resounds with urban night life and is one of his most popular works that numerous orchestras have performed. The Clarinet Concerto (1998) contains references to jazz, film music, Minimalism and electronic dance music. The strong rhythmic element is also present in the 1995 'Kellarisinfonia' ('Garage Symphony'), scored for a big-band-like ensemble, as well as in more recent works, such as the 'Boost' (2009) for cello and analogue monosynth. The Second String Quartet (1997) includes some of Nuorvala’s most romantically soaring pages. During recent years Nuorvala has created the music and sounds for several plays at the Finnish National Theatre, in addition to writing an opera (Flash Flash, 2005) based on the life of Andy Warhol (libretto: Juha Siltanen). Starting from the 2000's, Nuorvala has written his most of his music in alternative tuning systems (mainly in the system known as Extended Just Intonation).[/I]

Bring it on!

It sounds slightly out of focus, that's all

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It worked for me!

It must be this iPad again.

[PJPJ]

Many thanks for the link - I thoroughly enjoyed this modern Musical Joke.

Explanation here (in Finnish - so use Google Translate although it struggles....)

Nuorvala

I also enjoy Max Richter. I'd offer to get my coat but in this weather.....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It worked for me!

.....A sight more interesting than H&N's Max Richter's Memory House!

I got it to work in the end. I've run several school orchestras in my time, but I like to think they didn't have this effect.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Hmmmm. I wonder what would happen if we got a school orchestra to play it.

[Serial_Apologist]

It worked for me!

.....A sight more interesting than H&N's Max Richter's Memory House!

Which I listened to, or half-listened to, last night. In every way sub-Philip Glass, whose proper place was Radio 2.

[Richard Barrett]

In every way sub-Philip Glass, whose proper place was Radio 2.

I'll give that a miss then... wasn't he the "composer" who made a sort of easy-listening bowdlerised version of Vivaldi's Stagioni?

[Richard Barrett]

Anyway the video clip from Finland convinces me that the orchestra isn't really a suitable medium for exploring the possibilities of "alternative tuning systems"... plus, if you're going to be experimental with the tuning why be so conventional with everything else? why not go the extra distance like Harry Partch and build instruments which are conceived from the start in terms of the system you're using... or like La Monte Young and write music whose transparency allows you to hear intensely the subtle harmonic relations in your system, as in The Well-Tuned Piano - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gsu0EaHxB0 - one of the greatest things ever to come out of "minimal" music IMO.

[MrGongGong]

Anyway the video clip from Finland convinces me that the orchestra isn't really a suitable medium for exploring the possibilities of "alternative tuning systems"... plus, if you're going to be experimental with the tuning why be so conventional with everything else? why not go the extra distance like Harry Partch and build instruments which are conceived from the start in terms of the system you're using... or like La Monte Young and write music whose transparency allows you to hear intensely the subtle harmonic relations in your system, as in The Well-Tuned Piano - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gsu0EaHxB0 - one of the greatest things ever to come out of "minimal" music IMO.

Absolutely

(I hear that it's all "Modernisms Fault" anyway or is it scandalous gossip that you were witness to a fight at a German music conference recently ?)

[Roehre]

....

(I hear that it's all "Modernisms Fault" anyway or is it scandalous gossip that you were witness to a fight at a German music conference recently ?)

Have I mised something ?

[Richard Barrett]

is it scandalous gossip that you were witness to a fight at a German music conference recently

It was in Vienna actually, and I had said my modern-istical bit and left by the time the claim in question was made by some orchestra bureaucrat from the Netherlands.