Turns out that string quartets are among my favorite classical music forms, along with large ensemble symphonic pieces and solo piano (or exclusively piano recordings, be they solo or multiple - Ives's pieces for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart are stunning). I tend to approach composers I am interested first through either large ensemble symphonic-style pieces or through string quartets. I think in general the reason I like string quartets is that they put compositional ideas in stark relief, without having them buried in potentially obfuscating orchestrations. For my own creative education, they are also important for studying how string instruments relate to each other, which is important if you ever find yourself in a room full of guitar players & you don't want to sound like a jam band.
Several of these pieces are benchmarks for me. I discovered the Debussy a couple years back when I was on a Debussy binge. Interestingly, this is one of the pieces that I have a clear favorite version I listen to: the Kodaly Quartet plays this faster and jauntier than most, and it's definitely how I like it. The next to cuts are performed by the Kronos Quartet, a gateway drug for classical music in general and string quartets in particular. Their Black Angels album made a huge impression on me. The pieces they play are notable as well: Gorecki before he went all tonal, and perhaps the best known female composer in the west, Sofia Gubaidulina. Shostokovich was another binge for me, and I think his string quartets are his real signature, not the more famous symphonies. Beethoven follows up some twelve tone & modernist guys, and is in turn followed by the out-of-time Bartok. Rochberg & Carter round out the first mixtape, from late mid-century when tonality was gauche (Rochberg) and modernism was hip (Carter).
The second mixtape starts with Mr. Twelve Tone himself, Arnold Schoenberg, and travels through Schnittke to Steve Reich's minimalism. Morton Feldman's pointillist abstraction is up next, then side one rounds out with some lovely Brahms. Side two devolves into that time Karlheinz Stockhausen sent up the members of Arditti Quartet each in their own helicopter to play a string quartet, the loopy bastard. Apparently Karl was a bit less concerned about his carbon footprint than his reputation as an avant-garde enfant terrible. Side two is rounded out by two of my favorites, Ives and Ligeti, who are perhaps less known for their string quartets.
Indeed, you can, if you wish, dub these on to 90 minute cassettes and play them in your 81 Tercel. But why bother? Hit the Spotify button and enjoy.
I have a long and somewhat complicated relationship with minimalism. I remember running across Koyaanisqatsi in '84 or '85, through a room mate who worked with a guy who had worked on the film. I remember being okay with the film . . . but boy, did 24-year-old punk rock me fucking hate Philip Glass. That opinion didn't change much as I moved (roughly) through punk to noise to free jazz to experimental free improv to modern classical. By the time I started really getting into John Cage, I started to appreciate space and silence in music much more than I had previously; but still, John Cage is not a minimalist, and chance operation is not the same repetition and decay, nor is spaciousness in music the same as ambiance. Glass's chirpy repetition bugs me, as does (to a lesser degree) Terry Riley's.
There is, of course, a lot of cross breeding between Minimalist "serious" music and experimental rock music, from the Velvet Underground - Cale shows up here with his Theater of Eternal Music crew, and you can see/hear a direct link between this and a song like "Venus in Furs" from the first album - through Mark E. Smith's three R's ("repetition, repetition, repetition"), to the druggy drones of Spacemen 3's Dreamweapon (which is heavily influenced by La Monte Young and Angus MacLise, and would fit in perfectly with this collection), to the high volume doom drones of Earth and Sunn O))). For me, always the 15-year-old metal head at heart, the heavier the drone, the better . . . but probably what really got me back into minimalism, as far as my own music is concerned, is the Buddha Machine.
I actually had a sort of joke minimalist piece on side 2 of Pain Free Living, the first Black Kaspar tape, called "Bring Me the Head of Terry Riley". What happened was that I had about 45 minutes worth of material for the tape, so I just duped them myself onto Radio Shack 90s, and put everything on the first side. Rather than leaving side two blank, or repeating the same program on both sides, I took a three second sample of my guitar shorting out while I was recording a solo, and looped it for 53 minutes. This does not really function like classical minimalism, since the loop does not decay or, indeed, change in any way whatsoever over the course of the 45 minute tape side. I did the whole piece as a goof; but Dan Willems, after listening to it a couple times whilst doing the dishes, told me it had a sort of weird, hypnotic, almost hallucinogenic effect on him . . . so, I suppose at some level it was a successful composition. And hey, it beat the fuck out of Philip Glass.
I got a few of the Buddha Machines and used them frequently in the 2012-2013 time frame. The videos above are short, but only because of the limitations of recording on my phone and uploading long video to YouTube . . . I was interested in working longer, though not as long as the standard minimalist pieces tend to go, and certainly not hours or days, which is the preferred working time frame of La Monte Young. And even beyond using them in my music, I still occasionally set them up and just let them go for my own listening pleasure.
At the end of the day, however, I am not a committed minimalist. Though the machines often show up in the music from the time frame listed above, they are often mutated much more aggressively than a minimalist would tolerate:
So, I am not a minimalist, but the influence is there.
* * * * *
I recently posted a killer Bo Diddley video on facebook, and in the comments, lamented the fact that my collection was woefully lean on Bo's recorded output. Old friend Dave Cruse offered to hook me up with some outside/rare Bo, and a week or so later two (killer!) 90 minute Maxells showed up in my mailbox. In return, he asked for some minimalism, so he's getting four tapes worth. Before I get into the notes, I should say that, per the sixties minimalism practices, these performances were meant to experience, not listen to on a recording, and it is not a genre that lends itself well to recordings, generally speaking. And, obviously, this is not a comprehensive study, since it leaves off two seminal figures (Glass and Steve Reich), more traditional minimalists like Arvo Pärt and John Adams, precursors and fellow travelers like Moondog, John Cage and Morton Feldman, rock/pop crossovers like Arthur Russell, Faust, and Spacemen 3, and whole genres of dance music (including EDM) which should be included in minimalism.
Tape One starts with Terry Riley, and I've already slandered him a couple times, so I will stop. In C gets performed in Louisville at least once a year.
Ryhs Chatham is a favorite of mine, and not just because he assembles huge guitar orchestras. He has an almost Romantic approach to music (I am a sucker for Romantic composers and romanticism, generally speaking). The undulating swell of the first movement of The Crimson Grail faintly echoes various Wagner overtures, to my somewhat warped ear. Chatham also has a phenomenal recording called Two Gongs, which is . . . you guessed it! . . . two gongs getting bashed for over an hour, which is much more aesthetically in line with classical minimalism.
La Monte Young, with his connection to the Velvet Underground and the New York sixties scene in general, is probably the most high profile minimalist to the average rock fan. Young is also well known for his dedication to making performances of his music into happenings. The Well Tuned Piano is a piece that runs roughly five hours.
If I can be said to have a favorite artist who falls roughly into the minimalist category, it would probably be Henry Flynt. Flynt is an extraordinarily interesting person in a general sense, and You Are My Everlovin' is unique in the way it sucks in so much of the cultural scrapheap of America and puts it back out in a way so raw and honest that it virtually erases artifice altogether. Even Flynt's musical failures (and he has a few) are fascinating.
More from the New York scene as the Theater of Eternal Music crew comes across with an excerpt. As mentioned above, you could draw a direct line between this and "Venus in Furs".
I wish I could speak intelligently about Pauline Oliveros. Her work is fascinating, but I frankly have yet to really wrap my head around it. Here her concept of "deep listening" is on display: a group improv, but rather than the lightning quick chatter of the jazz improviser, this is slow, graceful, and seamless.
We mentioned the Young-VU connection between minimalism and rock, but David Bowie (along with Brian Eno) is the one who brought it to pop with his Berlin trilogy, most notably Low. It should be mentioned that the Krautrock scene was also heavily influenced by minimalism.
Phill Niblock, who is still very active, is one of the later New York minimalists. His hurdy gurdy pieces are fabulous in the way they reference the ground zero of minimalism, the primal source of the drone - the Southern or Central Asian tambura, the Indian tanpura or sitar - and do it with a European instrument, albeit one that has origins in the Middle East. Oh, and he's from my hometown, so shout out to Anderson Indiana!
Tony Conrad, another key figure of the notorious New York scene and member of The Primitives with Lou Reed and John Cale, is largely responsible for making the minimalist/Krautrock connection by collaborating with Faust in 1973. This particular cut comes from a 1995 album recorded by Steve Albini and featuring post-rockers David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Conrad was also quite the raconteur; the movie about him is a must-see.
The four volumes of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops are legendary: consisting of tape loop experiments he had done over the years, the Disintegration Loops were the result of the disintegration of the tapes as he tried to transfer them over to hard drives after years in storage. The loops famously were finished on September 11th, 2001, and served as soundtrack to videos that Basinski shot that day from his Brooklyn loft.
CC Hennix is yet another of the New Yorkers, though she was born in Sweden. Like Conrad (and others), she is a mathematician.
Charlemagne Palestine is, you guessed it, another New Yorker, but more toward the gentle hippy side of things than provocateurs like Flynt and Conrad. This long piano piece is not unlike Young's Well Tuned Piano, but Palestine is actually playing a standard piano.
No Spotify playlist on this one. Most of these pieces are up on YouTube. Tapes are on the way, Dave. Enjoy!
Tape One Side One
Terry Riley - In C
Rhys Chatham - The Crimson Grail (for 400 Guitars): Part One
Side Two
La Monte Young - The Well-Tuned Piano (excerpt)
Tape Two Side One
Henry Flynt - You Are My Everlovin' Side Two
Henry Flynt - Celestial Power
Tape Three Side One
Theater of Eternal Music (John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela) - Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume I: Day of Niagara
Pauline Oliveros - "Suiren" from Deep Listening
David Bowie - "Wailing Wall" from Low Side Two
Phill Niblock - Four Arthurs Superimposed with Two Octaves and a Fifth
Tony Conrad - "The Heterophony Of The Avenging Democrats, Outside, Cheers The Incineration Of The Pythagorean Elite, Whose Shrill Harmonic Agonies Merge And Shimmer Inside Their Torched Meeting House" from Slapping Pythagoras Tape Four Side One
William Basinski - "dlp 1.02" from Disintegration Loops IV
Catherine Christer Hennix - The Electric Harpsichord Side Two
Charlemagne Palestine - Strumming Music (excerpt)
A swan drifting through the land of the dead opens this volume of The Western Lands mixtape series. Illusions, delusions, Faustian bargains, the underworld - the Western Lands from the Egyptian Book of the Dead - haunt this collection, from Sibelius's Finnish phoenix, through Rimsky-Korsakov's Arabian Nights, Liszt's trio of devils, Branca's satanic choir, Partch's furies, and Stravinsky's Russian phoenix. As per usual, twists and turns abound, from romanticism to atonalism to minimalism and points in between. A loose narrative flow was attempted on tape 8 (more details here), but it really doesn't demonstrate any more cohesion than any of the others.
Next up: songs. As always, the Spotify playlist is not always the same as the tapes, though it is as close as possible. Tape 7
Side 1
Jean
Sibelius – The Swan of Tuonela (Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra)
Edvard Grieg
– Concerto in A Minor for Piano and Orchestra: I Allegro molto moderato (Von
Karajan/Philharmonia Orchestra)
Elliot
Carter – Piano Concerto (Leinsdorf/Boston Symphony)
Anton Webern
– String Trio Op. 20: 2. Sehr getragen und ausdrucksvoll (Boulez/Ensemble
Intercontemporian)
Benjamin
Britten – The Courtly Dances: III Pavane (from Symphonic Suite: Glorianna, Op.
52a) (Bedford/LSO)
Side 2
Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade: I The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship (Ormandy/Philadelphia
Orchestra)
Alban Berg –
Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin, and 13 Wind Instruments (Pisek/Chamber
Ensemble of Wind Instruments, Prague)
György
Ligeti – Doppelkonzert für Flöte, Oboe, und Orchester (Howarth/Swedish Radio
Orchestra)
Tape 8
Side 1
Franz Liszt
– A Faust Symphony: III Mephistopheles (Bernstein/NYP)
Glenn Branca
– Symphony No. 6 (Devil Choirs at the Gates of Heaven): Fifth Movement
(Branca/Ensemble)
Eduard Tubin
– Symphony No. 9: I Adagio (Järvi/Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra)
Side 2
John Philip
Sousa – George Washington’s Bicentennial March (Urbanec/Czechoslovak Brass
Orchestra)
Vyacheslav
Artiomov – Sonata of Meditation: III Evening
Harry Partch
– Delusion of the Fury: Exordium Beginning of the Web (Mitchell/Ensemble)
Igor
Stravinsky – The Firebird Suite (Ozawa/Boston Symphony Orchestra)
Next up in the Western Lands mixtape series: piano! Keyboards are perhaps the heart of western music, the site where composition often occurs. Its maestros are at the front of the orchestras, the rock stars of concert hall (Lisztomania!). Piano music is capable of the most delicate intricacies, the most overwhelming fiery explosions, and everything in between.
A side note: there are two African-American jazz composers/pianists included on these mixtapes. Cecil Taylor is up front about looking at the European tradition as much as the history of jazz; Monk, not as much. A purist would argue about their inclusion, but it is well known that 20th century composers by and large were eager to celebrate the contributions of jazz . . . Stravinsky, for instance, wrote pieces for "jazz orchestra" and is said to have championed Duke Ellington as the greatest composer as the 20th century. And though Monk may not display the chops of a Glenn Gould (okay, that's not fair, because who does?), the parallels between his brand of eccentricity and someone like Satie seems fairly clear.
So, enjoy this playlist as some of the all time greats tickle the ivories! As always, Spotify playlist tracks mixtapes as closely as reasonably possible.
Tape 5: Piano
Side 1
Ludwig Van
Beethoven – Piano Sonata No.2: II Adagio cantabile (Glenn Gould)
Erik Satie –
Trios Nocturnes (Aldo Ciccolini)
John Cage –
Music of Changes III (David Tudor)
Cecil Taylor
– Erzulie Maketh Scent: Part II (Cecil Taylor)
My mother, in a well-intentioned (probably Dr. Spock influenced) effort to expose her firstborn to culture at a young age, made sure I listened to a copy of some sort of Disney-esqe classical music for children LP. It went well with the grey wool pants, suspenders, starched white shirt, bow tie, and sweater with a crest that I sported in my toddler pictures. Fortunately for everyone involved, she gave up on that by the time her other children showed up. I did, however, manage to pick up a couple orchestral favorites before I turned five: Handel's Water Music, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Neither are of major interest to me anymore, but I have copies on hand in case I ever want to revisit them.
As a teenager, I became obsessed with rock, mainly hard rock/heavy metal. Led Zeppelin was never far from the turntable, nor were The Who, Hendrix, or the Rolling Stones. Eventually, Frank Zappa became an obsession, which led to my second brush with classical music: I had his first London Symphony Orchestra record, 200 Motels, and Orchestral Favorites (one of the Läther releases). I didn't really "get" it, I didn't know if it was supposed to be good or not (because lord knows you can't count on Zappa fans for a reasonable critique of his "genius"). It occurred to me to start listening to classical music as a way to acquire more knowledge of music - which was quickly becoming my main fascination - and to that end, I picked up a couple cheap classical cassettes. One, Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites, remains a favorite to this day; a second, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, is also a piece that still stays with me.
But then, punk rock happened to me, and I took a different track.
A few years into punk, I headed hard in the noise direction. At some point someone pointed out that there were "modern classical" composers who were even more obnoxious than Einstürzende Neubauten, and I discovered Turnabout's infamous Electronic Music LP, which featured Cage's "Fontana Mix", Berio's "Visage", and Mimaroglu's "Agony". Not far behind were Varèse, Stockhausen, Penderecki, Xenakis . . .
From there, I decided to start listening to classical music in a somewhat more systematic way. One gray day I ended up in Ars Nova/The Glass Harmonica, a classical music store (sheet music as well as classical LPs, cassettes, and the then-new medium of CD) just off Third Street down by Indiana University's School of Music, poking around to find something that might catch my interest. I found a tape from the so-called Walkman Classics series that featured Arnold Schoenberg. The only thing I know about Schoenberg is that a classical music snob I knew went on and on about how terrible he was, and said I should listen to everything by Mozart before anything else. I hated the Mozart I heard, so I guessed that I would like the guy he hated. That tape turned out to be one of the most deeply influential music pickups I ever made: Verklärte Nacht is one of my favorite pieces, but the other stuff blew me away as well: Ligeti's Lux aeterna, Nono's Como una ola de fuerza y luz, some Alban Berg . . . and a Stravinsky piece I didn't care for much. Maybe it was how the music perfectly sliced through the fog of the day, maybe it was the mood I was in; whatever the reason, that tape (pictured above) sent me on my quest to grasp classical music. Transfigured night, indeed.
I tell people all the time that I got into classical music backwards, starting with "difficult" modern composers and going backwards to more traditional classical music icons. I really don't go back to much further than Beethoven. I still hate most of the Mozart I hear (with the notable exception of his Requiem), and Bach sounds like math to me unless it is played by a transcendent musician such as Pablo Casals or Glenn Gould. But there is plenty of the romantic that I like - Debussy, Ravel, Mahler, Grieg, Sibelius - and I'm down for the mixing of melody, atonality, and just plain insanity of composers from Shostakovich to Cowell and Ives.
This, then, would be a reckoning.
As always, the Spotify playlist hews as close to the tapes as possible, but it is not always possible to find the exact version that I have. And yes, there are more to come: as I write this, I am up to tape 9.
Tape 3
Side 1
Luigi Nono –
Y su sangre ya viene cantando (Maderna/Rome Symphony Orchestra)
I tell people that lately I have been listening to a lot of "classical" music, and they nod their heads as if they know exactly what I mean . . . which is, of course, even less sensible than pretending to know what I mean if I say I listen to "rock". What generally is called "classical" covers centuries of Western music, and if you think the Stooges would sound incongruous on your local classic rock station, it would be nothing compared to Stockhausen's Kontakte sandwiched between Bach and Vivaldi on the local NPR classical outlet.
I have been buying up classical LPs at the local shops, since they sell for a fraction of what rock, punk, and jazz LPs go for these days. I got into classical music backwards: coming from a punk/post-punk/free jazz/free improv background, I started with 20th Century experimental work and really only go back as far as Beethoven. The big names in 20th Century experimental - Stockhausen, Oliveros, Partch, Cage, Xenakis, et al. - have a certain cachet among the post-punk crowd, and therefore pull higher prices on the used market than the average classical records and CDs (collector items notwithstanding, of course) . . . so, I'm using this opportunity to fill the gaps in my (more mainstream) classical collection. My good friend Shannon has recently ferreted out a couple large classical LP collections, and has allowed my to skim off the top for almost nothing, so I've currently got a big haul that I am wading through. There's plenty here by some of my faves - Beethoven, Debussy, Mahler, Shostakovich - so I have the luxury of finding my favorite versions.
Whilst sifting through my booty, I've decided to start making classical mixtapes: after all, what goes better with vinyl surface noise than low bias cassette tapes? Below the track listings is a Spotify playlist which, when possible, has the exact version that I pulled from my collection. I find that, while the records I am picking up these days are more mainstream in nature, these mixtapes are pulling liberally from my whole collection, including the more "weird" sounding modern classical.
TAPE 1
Side 1
Gustav
Mahler - Symphony No. 9 in D: I - Adante comodo (Bernstien/NYP)
Sofia
Gubaidulina – Garden of Joy and Sadness (excerpt)
Charles Ives
- Symphony No. 4: Comedy – Allegretto (Tilson-Thomas/CSO)
Side 2
Robert
Schumann – Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A Minor (Prades Festival
Orchestra, Pablo Casals, Cello)
Jean
Sibelius – Kyllikki, Op. 41: II – Andantino (Glenn Gould, piano)
Walter
Piston – Symphony No. 8: I – Moderato Mosso (Mester/Louisville Symphony
Orchestra)
Elliot Sharp
– Digital (Kronos Quartet)
TAPE 2
Side 1
Richard
Wagner – Das Rheingold: Overture, Scene I (Von Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic)
Morton
Feldman – The O’Hara Songs (Ensemble Avantgarde)
Arnold
Schoenberg – A Survivor From Warsaw, Op. 46 (Boulez/BBC Symphony Orchestra)
Side 2
Carl Ruggles
– Sun Treader (Rozsnyai/Columbia Symphony Orchestra)
Maurice
Ravel – Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No.2 (Szell/Cleveland Orchestra)
Witold
Lutoslawski – String Quartet, Introductory Movement (Kronos Quartet)
Luc Ferrari
– Tête et queue du dragon (Ferrari)
Enjoy! There's plenty more to come; I'm already up to tape 5.
