H&N tomorrow

[Quarky]

I have been looking on the web for recordings of Gesang and Gruppen in Surround Sound. There are however apparently very few recordings in any format, which I found surprising.

Surround Sound would work?

[Richard Barrett]

I have been looking on the web for recordings of Gesang and Gruppen in Surround Sound. There are however apparently very few recordings in any format, which I found surprising.

There aren't very many releases of electronic or spatial music in surround format - there are a couple of Xenakis DVDs on Mode which have 5.1 sound (not so convincingly mixed IMO). I guess the reason is that not very many people are interested in that kind of music and those who are would mostly not be well-heeled enough to have a suitable system. And this of course is one good reason to go to concerts!

[Quarky]

Whilst this program will be fascinating from a music technology standpoint, in the bigger scheme of things - especially in the context of what came after - Gesang der Jünglinge isn't that brilliant a piece. Electronically speaking, it's undeniably seminal for its time (sine tones and the seamless integration of electronic and human sounds), but it's difficult to get excited about it as a well-structured musical discourse.

The subject of the work is undeniably exciting: "The text of Gesang der Jünglinge is from a Biblical story in The Book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace but miraculously they are unharmed and begin to sing praises to God. This text is presented in a carefully devised scale of seven degrees of comprehensibility"

IMV, Stockhausen has captured this "incident" in the voice fragments, but of course we are looking at matters via an electronic glass.

What more is it fair to expect of KHS?

[Richard Barrett]

it's difficult to get excited about it as a well-structured musical discourse.

But what is a "well-structured musical discourse" but a turn of phrase that tries to make one's musical tastes seem more objective? Plus: music doesn't have to be discursive, does it? nor does it need to conform to received ideas of what "well-structured" might mean. Beyond all the hype around innovation there is a sense of purpose about Gesang which makes most of the electronic music from that period sound tentative, and this sense is I think what sets it apart.

[Boilk]

But what is a "well-structured musical discourse" but a turn of phrase that tries to make one's musical tastes seem more objective? Plus: music doesn't have to be discursive, does it? nor does it need to conform to received ideas of what "well-structured" might mean. Beyond all the hype around innovation there is a sense of purpose about Gesang which makes most of the electronic music from that period sound tentative, and this sense is I think what sets it apart.

Well, what is a "sense of purpose" applied to music but a turn of phrase itself? Any sense of purpose is not innate in a piece ... but attributed to it by the listener's prevailing musical sensibilities - helped along, probably, by cumulative familiarity with the piece.

In its early days, composers of electronic music often revelled in the then-novelty of schizophrenic-like, rapid and dramatic musical shifts that the cutting and splicing of tape could afford, somewhat elusive up to that time due to the (relative) technical constraints of instrument-playing musicians. The plentiful and abrupt mood and textural shifts in Gesang to my mind definitely detract from a homogenous purposefulness, and often seem to be there simply because they are achievable with tape.

Perhaps any credentials of purposefulness in Gesang lie most evidently in its literary aspect ... a pioneering 'electronic symphonic poem' ?

[Richard Barrett]

Well, what is a "sense of purpose" applied to music but a turn of phrase itself? Any sense of purpose is not innate in a piece ... but attributed to it by the listener's prevailing musical sensibilities - helped along, probably, by cumulative familiarity with the piece.

Of course, but by the same token nothing is "innate in a piece" apart from a succession of sounds which always require some degree of cultural familiarity in order to be experienced as music at all. What I mean by a "sense of purpose" is connected with one of the things that separates Stockhausen from many of his contemporaries at that time (and afterwards) - his ability not just to push technical innovation as fas as he could, and for that matter structural innovation too (since Gesang tends towards the subsequently-formulated "moment form" which IMO represents the most convincing and fruitful extension of the serial concept into the domain of musical form that anyone's yet imagined), but at the same time to create a dramatic and memorable musical experience. (Though presumably you wouldn't agree that it is.) Not that I'm saying this is the only and true path of course.

[Quarky]

his ability not just to push technical innovation as fas as he could, and for that matter structural innovation too (since Gesang tends towards the subsequently-formulated "moment form" which IMO represents the most convincing and fruitful extension of the serial concept into the domain of musical form that anyone's yet imagined)

Fascinating discussion between the experts.

Just an odd thought, in view of movement by KHS in subsequent compositions towards a degree of improvisation, chance or free will on the part of the performers: where does spontaneous improvisation, for example free Jazz, stand in the grand scheme of things? Should we regard it as Moment Form composition?

[Serial_Apologist]

Fascinating discussion between the experts.

Just an odd thought, in view of movement by KHS in subsequent compositions towards a degree of improvisation, chance or free will on the part of the performers: where does spontaneous improvisation, for example free Jazz, stand in the grand scheme of things? Should we regard it as Moment Form composition?

I understand Moment Form as arising from the specifics of serialism as previously adumbrated, whereas no such desiderata applied to free improvisation, though the fact that early improv, if one takes the SME and AMM as paradigmatic, took atonality - serialism's precursor for some - as given, does seem to raise common issues relating to language and the expected. (One of the postwar serialists' objections (well, Boulez's), had been Schoenberg's retention of the cadence, an anachronistic vestigial from tonal discourse. Avoidance of cadential resolution by free improvisers serves a similar principle: the less forward movement "implied" by the thrust of phrasing, the more ambiguity introduced in accepting the non-tempered and "noise", the more music can be engaged as sound deprived of history in "the now".

These points have from time to time raised furious points of principle among the improvised music community - some arguing Derek Bailey's position that longterm collaborations betweeen the same improvising musicians should be avoided at all costs as courting of habit formation, thus undermining "the sound of surprise" Whitney Balliet once wrote as the definition of jazz. Others hold the more relaxed view that friendship and community, key aspects of free music improvisation (along with rejecting professionalism and exclusivity) are conducive to longterm musical associations, and that the right attitude thereby fostered can obviate problems of familiarity. Free jazz - as a genre separate from free improv, drawing from backgrounds including and other than jazz - in any case retains and is more relaxed about conventions such as tonality, melody, pulse and rhythm.

In "Telemusik", if I've got this right, the serial concept applies to a prearranged measured proportionality between parameters modulated by the series, rather than to just pitches, durations etc. I've often wondered if Stockhausen's "acceptance" of the improvisational at a certain point around 1967, shortly after "Telemusik" and "Hymnen", his largest tape work, (in "Aus den Sieben Tagen") amounted to much more than a passing acknowledgement of the impossibility of complete control once envisaged by some serial composers, maybe an ironic take outflanking of Cage who, for all his talk and writings on chance, never went as far as Stockhausen (at that point) in relinquishing control over musical processes the preconditions for which he still felt required to set up. Some later free improv exponents have re-taken the idiomatic on board, for reasons both political and postmodern. Steve Beresford has spoken of improv's overwhelmingly male domination and has pointed out the inability of abstraction to embrace the whole person in the act of music making, excluding the sensuous and the physical emphasised in street music. Implicated in the commercial co-option of the latter is its reduction to basic elements, but, consequent on multiculturalism, these so say crude elements have become so diffused through market operations on indigenous forms in the "developing world" and in their imported forms as to render the capacity for their randomised introduction for purposes of mixing in free improvisation (in a group like Alterations analogous to mashups in hip hop) to break up all sense of innate continuity and show it as as much constructed as any musical convention. This seems to challenge the idea that any sound can be "innocent", in Cageian terms; all sounds are ineluctably overlain with meanings by virtue of the meanings they have accrued through use. Referencing, perhaps like the meaningful shapes inferred in Rorschach ink blots, is unavoidable. Beresford has spoken of finding great beauty in the moments of confoundment when participants run out of ways to comment on each other's referencings, when "the spontaneous" really does arise ineluctably, rather than through unintended deliberation or operation of "principles".

[Richard Barrett]

I don't know where to start with that post of yours, S_A, there's so much fascinating stuff packed into it. One reason I find it fascinating is that I've been writing about some related issues myself. I hope it isn't too selfindulgent of me to quote part of this:

Free improvisation seems to have arisen independently around the early 1960s at a number of points around the globe, and as a consequence of several strands of development - the possibility of improvising the structural-expressive framework of a piece of music comes into being, I think, as a direct consequence of the realisation that any sound may be combined with any other sound in a musical context. After this point there’s no further need to create or inherit the framework in advance of making the music. Although of course there may be a desire to do so, for many possible reasons.

In other words, serialism is one of the things that makes free improvisation possible, especially in Stockhausen's case where you can imagine him systematically ordering "degrees of freedom". A related reason for the move towards indeterminacy is the realisation that, with the demands of a touring schedule and for new works, Stockhausen (and Cage for another example) realised that continuing to extend the complexity of things like Gruppen or Momente or Kontakte (or Music of Changes) was getting increasingly impractical, the choice being either to work out a new way of doing things or to stay at home or in the studio, which (as in my quote) might not be necessary anyway.

At the same time, Stockhausen's most indeterminate work, the text-compositions Aus den sieben Tagen, are obviously in an important sense serial music too.

[Serial_Apologist]

A reminder, following the premiere just now (anyone hear it?) of Murail's "Reflections/Reflets", of the complete "Pli selon pli" performance, together with a new Boulez piano work, "Une page d'ephemeride", on tonight's Hear and Now at 10.30.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g22qy

[Richard Barrett]

By the way, not that this is strictly relevant to the thread topic:

Steve Beresford has spoken of improv's overwhelmingly male domination

Where and when did he talk about this? because I'm really not sure it's a completely tenable position at this point in history, although it certainly has been in the past; I have the feeling that the proportion of women in free improvisation is probably quite comparable to their representation among composers of notated music (which would be tha valid comparison to make I think), that is by no means yet equal, but certainly heading in the right direction. Anthony Braxton admirably ensures these days that his larger performing groups are 50% female.

[Serial_Apologist]

By the way, not that this is strictly relevant to the thread topic:



Where and when did he talk about this? because I'm really not sure it's a completely tenable position at this point in history, although it certainly has been in the past; I have the feeling that the proportion of women in free improvisation is probably quite comparable to their representation among composers of notated music (which would be tha valid comparison to make I think), that is by no means yet equal, but certainly heading in the right direction. Anthony Braxton admirably ensures these days that his larger performing groups are 50% female.

Yes I should have mentioned Steve as having said words to that effect in an interview with Impetus magazine in the late 70s. In further thinking about this I'm pretty certain he would have changed his view on the matter today.

[Quarky]

A reminder, following the premiere just now (anyone hear it?) of Murail's "Reflections/Reflets", of the complete "Pli selon pli" performance, together with a new Boulez piano work, "Une page d'ephemeride", on tonight's Hear and Now at 10.30.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g22qy

Can I believe my ears? There's enough music on Saturday night to keep me going for the rest of the week! And the Schnittke Symphony earlier in the week seems to have reawakened my interest in Mahler.

Is there a social aspect to the female issue in contemporary music? I know most of my lady friends can't abide the music I listen to - Classics for Pleasure is the furthest they will go. So I usually listen alone.

Probably the same applies to the opposite sex - and maybe Lady musicians feel this issue more keenly. So there may be a tendency to avoid the intellectually heavy stuff.

[Serial_Apologist]

Can I believe my ears? There's enough music on Saturday night to keep me going for the rest of the week! And the Schnittke Symphony earlier in the week seems to have reawakened my interest in Mahler.

Is there a social aspect to the female issue in contemporary music? I know most of my lady friends can't abide the music I listen to - Classics for Pleasure is the furthest they will go. So I usually listen alone.

Probably the same applies to the opposite sex - and maybe Lady musicians feel this issue more keenly. So there may be a tendency to avoid the intellectually heavy stuff.

Not by women composers we know of, Oddball.

[MrGongGong]

Can I believe my ears? There's enough music on Saturday night to keep me going for the rest of the week! And the Schnittke Symphony earlier in the week seems to have reawakened my interest in Mahler.

Is there a social aspect to the female issue in contemporary music? I know most of my lady friends can't abide the music I listen to - Classics for Pleasure is the furthest they will go. So I usually listen alone.

Probably the same applies to the opposite sex - and maybe Lady musicians feel this issue more keenly. So there may be a tendency to avoid the intellectually heavy stuff.

You aren't hanging out with the right Laydeeeez matey .........

Is Diamanda Galas a "Lady Musician " ?