Last night's New Music Show had a small tribute to Gavin Bryars in his 81st year, including the obligatory Sinking of the Titanic. My first encounter with his work was in 1968at the Purcell Room when John Tilbury played a realisation Bruyars had made of Stockhausen's Plus-Minus, in which the 'plus' material was music hall songs (including a brief snatch of a 'cover' of Toiny Tim's version of Tiptoe Through the Tulips, and the 'minus' material was Stockhausen's own work. Would that it had been recorded.
-
-
I listened to enough of last night's programme to catch the first (?) performance of Bryars' Fourth String Quartet. Listening "blind" I thought from the idiom I was hearing some for me previously unknown work by a contemporary of Herbert Howells or Finzi, which for me was a very pleasant change from the dry mechanical approach of the first of the series!
-
That's not quite how it works. The principal material of the piece (including pitches) is supplied in the score. "Plus" and "minus" refer to changes in the values of various specified parameters. When these cause the duration of an event to be a negative number, a continuous "negative band" is to replace the material of the composition, which is presumably where the music hall material was used by Bryars (Cardew and Rzewski used radios in the first performance).Originally posted by Bryn View Post
Comment
-
I was relying on a description of the realisation offered by those involved at the time. I wondered how they related it to the score/instructions. I know that Cardew and Tilbury headed off to Paris the following day and gave another (very different) realisation involving cap bombs and other references to the Vietnam War.Originally posted by RichardB View PostComment
-
The musical material of the "negative band" is not specified except that it should be completely distinct from the actual material of the composition. (In my own not very good 1988 realisation I used fragments of the Licht operas as negative material.)Originally posted by Bryn View Post
I find Bryars's recent music hard to get to grips with, in comparison with what he was doing in the 1970s.
Comment
-
Many years ago I took part in a performance of 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet'. I was told then that there had been a film (or maybe simply a photograph) of the original singer, and that this would get larger and closer as the piece progressed. I have never been able to find anything to substantiate this - can anyone confirm it?Comment
-
Such a film almost existed/exist but not, IIRC, of the original singer but of another homeless man. Yes, the figure appears to advance slowly towards the camera. I attended the QEH premiere.Originally posted by Roslynmuse View PostComment
Comment