| $14.62
back in stock as of
december 22nd, 2010
first in stock on
august 24th, 2006
threads:
1960s-electornic
1970s-electronic
electro-acoustic-composition
minimalism-drones
musique-concrète
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| | | new world (usa) #nw 80555 cd richard maxfield / harold budd “the oak of the golden dreams” compact disc - richard maxfield - pastoral symphony (4:03) 1960
- richard maxfield - bacchanale (8:14) 1963
- richard maxfield - piano concert for david tudor (12:29) 1961
- richard maxfield - amazing grace (3:26) 1960
- harold budd - the oak of the golden dreams (18:44) 1970
- harold budd - coeur d’orr (19:46) 1969
| for the longest time i couldn’t figure why exactly these two sets of pieces by two very different composers were bashed into the same 1/0 stream ... until i recently heard the tale of lamonte “milk ‘em” young’s ownership of dick maxfield’s oeuvre ... and the insane price he has asked of new world for the (temporary!) licensing of maxfield’s music for this release, resulting in the producers-in-question adding the harold budd material to the proceedings in attempts to break even on the whole affair (both sets of music were initally released in the lp-era by the advance label, originals of the maxfield at least fetch a pretty penny). which kind of justifies it... but still...
the maxfield pieces herein are incredibly sharp (previously i’d only read about them in the great george maciunas remembrance-guide mr. fluxus wherein someone, probably joe jones, recounts a concert at lamonte young’s new york art-space in the early 60s of maxfield’s music) - ranging from tight, analogue-synth-based tape constructs (“pastoral sympony”), kind-of beatnik tape pieces (“bacchanale,” performed by an ensemble including terry jennings...), musique concrète piece sinvolving some serious inside-piano scraping (“piano concert for david tudor,” piano c/o its namesake...), and short, almost plunderphonic-feeling jump-cuts (”amazing grace”)...
i had only known budd as an eno-sympathizer/collaborator, so hearing the terry riley-esque buchla-workout that is “oak of the golden dreams” is kind of an earful... but then the... terry riley-esque “coeur d’orr” kind of hurts my head/feelings a little bit with its longing soprano sax lines & organ pedal tones...
even still, one of the better discs on new world (a catalogue already rife with gems...) - very much worth it for the maxfield material alone... |
| | new world press release... |
| richard maxfield: pastoral symphony , bacchanale, piano concert for david tudor, amazing grace
harold budd: the oak of the golden dreams, coeur d’orr
david tudor, piano
terry jennings, saxophone
edward fields, narration
fahrad machkat, violin
robert block; prepared violin
nicholas roussakis, underwater clarinet
harold budd, buchla electronic music system
charles oreña, soprano sax
this timely cd reissue combines two lps from the advance label — richard maxfield’s electronic music and harold budd’s the oak of the golden dreams — both containing seminal works which are key to a better understanding of the musical landscape of the sixties as well as the origins of minimalism.
a mostly forgotten figure, richard maxfield (1927-69) exerted a powerful influence over a broad range of composers through his classes at the new school. the works here predate the minimalist movement while forecasting a wide range of developments in the future of electronic work. the prophetic pastoral symphony (1960) is composed of continuously generated electronic tones while bacchanale (1963) is a musique concrète collage juxtaposing jazz with korean folk music, spoken word, and various instrumental contributions including terry jennings on saxophone. piano concert for david tudor (1961) draws its multifarious noises from a single source — antedating in that respect stockhausen’s mikrophonie i for amplified tam-tam (1964). tudor plays live alongside a three-channel montage constructed from sounds made on the inside of the piano with chains, spinning a gyroscope on the strings, showering the strings with tiddlywink discs, and other unusual operations. amazing grace (1960) mixes tape loops from two sources which are played back at various speeds, causing the fragments to overlap in complex ways, predating both riley’s and reich’s tape-loop pieces. if the maxfield pieces represent the state of new music in the months before minimalism was born, harold budd’s (b. 1936) works from 1970 reflect minimalism’s initial impact. the oak of the golden dreams was made on the buchla box which budd uses here as an electric organ capable of the kind of fast modal improv, over an unchanging e-flat drone, that terry riley and la monte young had been doing on saxophone and piano. coeur d’orr features a soprano sax improv against an electronic background on organ comprised of two tracks, one of which is another 1970 budd work, the famous candy apple revision. |
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