Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Latest Posts

Ernst Pepping and Allan Pettersson: Moral Dilemmas in Symphonic Music
"The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... "
Tell the Birds
Soundtrack to an Apocalypse
Feast Your Ears: New Music for Piano
Gone For Foreign
Fred Lerdahl: Time After Time
Nothing Sacred
Two From Wayne Horvitz
Two Fresh Cantaloupes

Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for our Editor's Pick's of the month. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019


Archives
Saturday, December 18, 2004 Saturday, December 25, 2004 Friday, December 31, 2004 Wednesday, January 05, 2005 Monday, January 10, 2005 Thursday, January 13, 2005 Thursday, January 20, 2005 Sunday, January 23, 2005 Monday, January 24, 2005 Saturday, January 29, 2005 Wednesday, February 02, 2005 Thursday, February 03, 2005 Monday, February 07, 2005 Tuesday, February 08, 2005 Friday, February 11, 2005 Monday, February 14, 2005 Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Tuesday, February 22, 2005 Monday, February 28, 2005 Sunday, March 06, 2005 Monday, March 07, 2005 Wednesday, March 09, 2005 Sunday, March 13, 2005 Friday, March 18, 2005 Monday, March 28, 2005 Saturday, April 02, 2005 Monday, April 11, 2005 Sunday, April 17, 2005 Tuesday, April 19, 2005 Monday, April 25, 2005 Monday, May 02, 2005 Monday, May 09, 2005 Tuesday, May 17, 2005 Tuesday, May 31, 2005 Monday, June 06, 2005 Thursday, June 16, 2005 Sunday, June 19, 2005 Sunday, July 10, 2005 Wednesday, July 13, 2005 Sunday, July 24, 2005 Friday, July 29, 2005 Monday, August 08, 2005 Monday, August 22, 2005 Wednesday, August 24, 2005 Friday, September 16, 2005 Sunday, September 25, 2005 Tuesday, October 04, 2005 Tuesday, October 18, 2005 Monday, October 24, 2005 Tuesday, November 01, 2005 Monday, November 07, 2005 Saturday, November 12, 2005 Wednesday, November 16, 2005 Tuesday, November 29, 2005 Friday, December 16, 2005 Monday, January 09, 2006 Thursday, January 12, 2006 Thursday, January 19, 2006 Tuesday, January 24, 2006 Thursday, February 02, 2006 Monday, February 13, 2006 Wednesday, February 15, 2006 Wednesday, March 01, 2006 Sunday, March 19, 2006 Sunday, March 26, 2006 Friday, March 31, 2006 Sunday, April 09, 2006 Monday, April 10, 2006 Thursday, April 20, 2006 Friday, April 21, 2006 Thursday, May 11, 2006 Thursday, May 18, 2006 Saturday, May 20, 2006 Friday, June 02, 2006 Tuesday, June 06, 2006 Friday, June 16, 2006 Monday, June 19, 2006 Sunday, June 25, 2006 Monday, June 26, 2006 Monday, July 10, 2006 Thursday, July 13, 2006 Thursday, July 20, 2006 Friday, July 21, 2006 Sunday, July 23, 2006 Thursday, August 03, 2006 Wednesday, August 09, 2006


Powered by Blogger

Thursday, May 18, 2006
Ives Plays Ives, More Number Pieces, and Musique Concrete
Ives Plays Ives: the Complete Recordings of Charles Ives at the Piano (1933-1943)
Charles Ives
New World Records

Many years ago, there was a multirecord LP set of Ives' music released on the occasion of his 100th birthday, and it contained a few short recordings of Ives playing some of his studies related to the Emerson movement of the Concord Sonata, and a really scratchy recording of his vocal performance on They Are There (which, as I remember, contained one or two endearing expletives to himself for hitting some wrong notes). Well, one can now have the complete recordings of Ives at the piano, and it's a fascinating, and enjoyable, compendium.

Not surprisingly, several of the works are various studies Ives wrote in preparation for the unfinished Emerson concerto for piano and orchestra (the Four Transcriptions from Emerson. Of course, they are close relatives of the first movement of the Concord Sonata, and this CD also contains Ives playing selected portions (and the complete The Alcotts movement) of that great piano work. There are also some of his piano studies, improvisations, March No. 6, and of course, They Are There!. In total, there are 42 short tracks comprising 17 unique Ives compositions. The performances are interesting in light of the many modern recordings, such as those by John Kirkpatrick and others, and it's also good that such old recordings can be preserved for later generations.

This recording is important for many reasons. Of course, there is the historic nature of the individual tracks. It provides some insight into Ives' compositional process and self-criticism (he ultimately abandoned some of the music on this album), and also gives some information about how Ives intended his music to be performed. Most of the tracks are too short to glean a lot of useful performance guidelines, but they may still be helpful in terms of providing perspective.


Eight-Two-ONE4)
John Cage
The Barton Workshop
Megadisc Classics

I like Cage's "Number" pieces, and this album doesn't disappoint. The Number pieces are titled based on the number of performers, and the exponent refers to the number of the work in that series (one8 would represent the eighth Number piece for solo performer). Each performer has his or her own set of instructions regarding pitch and duration, and the performer can start the note whenever he or she wants within the time allotted (for example, a time duration of 1 minute means that the note must last for 60 seconds, but when that note starts is indeterminate). This leads to some incredibly beautiful music, in part because (like In C, Feldman's Four Pianos, etc.), the musicians must listen to one another and make choices that determines the ultimate musical result.

Eight was written in 1991 for Trisha Brown and is scored for four wind and four brass instruments. This represents the first recording of the work. Interestingly, while most of the performance instructions are similar from one Number piece to another, in Eight, Cage specified that "Intonation need not be agreed upon." In other words, individual performers might not match the intonation used by other performers in the group. Two dates from 1987 is for flute and piano, while ONE4 is for solo drummer and was composed in 1990. These works, like the other Number pieces, represents the last major output from Cage, and are unlike any of his earlier pieces. The performances appear to be very sympathetic and well-executed, and complement the excellent series of Number pieces recorded on the OgreOgress Productions label.


Pioneers of Electronic Music
Works by Ussachevsky, Luening, Arel, Davidovsky, Shields, Smiley

New World Records

I have a book with an old photo of members of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and I believe everyone represented on this album (with the possible exception of Bulent Arel) are in that photo. While one can point out that the first electronic composition was Johanna Beyers' incredible Music of the Spheres written in 1938, and certainly Varese and others were playing with electronics in the early 50's, this album provides some important early pieces by other early pioneers of electronic music. Indeed, Ussachevsky's first electronic pieces ca. 1951 are considered to be the first electronic compositions performed in the US.

This album includes several works by Ussachevsky, including Sonic Contours, which provides electronic manipulation of recorded piano fragments in a way that makes the piano do things that humans cannot replicate. It does not provide the rhythmic complexity of a Nancarrow, however.

What surprised me the most was how much I actually liked the early electronic music of Otto Luening. His works for flute, electronically manipulated, are quite haunting and beautiful, particularly Low Speed,. The album also contains Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 5, which is a classic, although I've never been a fan. There is one work each by Arel, Smiley and Shields, and it is a shame that these composers have always, in my opinion, been overshadowed by Ussachevsky, Davidovsky and Luening. Perhaps this CD will help correct this imbalance.

 



Search WWWSearch www.sequenza21.com