mimaroglu music sales ☞ restocks & relistings

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... happy spring everyone !!! to commemorate our favorite season (and to help* get this place back to some sort of workable condition)* we're having a "spring cleaning" sale !!! please visit the *spring (2013)* cleaning page to view a list** of (recent, mostly 2012) releases that we're now offering at reduced prices (while supplies last, no rainchecks, etc) ...

mimaroglu music sales restocks & relistings

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$29.23

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
march 16th, 2007

threads:
modern-composition
fluxus

new world (usa) #nw 80659 cd

philip corner “extreme positions” double compact disc set

two discs of early and recent fluxus-lineage compositions !!

disc 1: trombones

for 2 trombones no. 2 (1960)
calling! om (“from the ’70s”)
attempting whitenesses (1964)
round sound (1963)
one note more than once (2005) (two performances)
an earth breath trilogy (2005)
big trombone (1963)

disc 2: ensemble

zen om (“from the ’70s”)
just another 12-tone piece (1995)
sang-teh, movement iii (1960–61)
passionate expanse of the law (1959)
lovely music (1961–62)
when they pull the plug (2002)
chopin prelude i: the v9 chord which begins the chopin d major prelude . . . as a revelation (1969)

new world press release...

philip corner: extreme positions

composer(s): philip corner
album title: philip corner: extreme positions
cat. no.: 80659 (2 cds)
genre: classical / chamber
release date: 03/2007

description:
the barton workshop:
jos zwaanenburg, flute
john anderson, clarinets
james fulkerson, hilary jeffery, trombones
nina hitz, cello
boris m. visser, violin
manuel visser, viola
rozemarie heggen, contrabass
krijn van arnhem, bassoon/contrabassoon
dante oei, piano (chopin prelude…)
tobias liebezeit, percussion
taylan susam, conductor (passionate expanse of the law)

philip corner (b 1933) studied composition with henry cowell and otto luening and musical analysis with oliver messiaen. during the 1960s and 70s he was an active member of fluxus, a founder (along with james tenney and malcolm goldstein) of the tone roads chamber ensemble, the resident musician and composer for the judson dance theatre, and co-founder of gamelan son of lion (with barbara benary and daniel goode).

the musical opportunities that these ensembles and their performances offered corner insured that he was both prolific and had or developed a deep understanding of the important artistic influences of that time. corner uses a variety of scoring methods—some scores are conventionally written out, some are graphic scores with added commentary and some are, indeed, only text or commentary by which corner creates an attitude to sound-making materials, the manner of eliciting sounds and the manner of responding to the activities of others.

he is truly the equal of john cage in forcing us to examine what we call music and how we understand music-making. he is a master of the art of presenting what amounts to a zen koan to the performer or performing ensembles. he sets interpretive challenges of the highest order while often creating music which can be realized by amateur or professional musician alike.

corner has commented that being drafted into the us army and sent to korea was in fact a “fortuitous” event in his life: “one of the things i learnt in korea was to go into the quality of sound … to enter into this thing that the orient had explored that the west hadn’t.” this set of recordings includes two of the seminal pieces from this period—sang-teh (situations) and lovely music—and proceeds to explore music from five decades of work under the direction of corner’s earlier collaborator, james fulkerson, and the composer himself.

this 2-cd set is the first comprehensive overview of his work, including many of his key compositions, and is an ideal introduction to an important but overlooked figure of the american avant-garde.

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 22nd, 2006

threads:
modern-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80658 cd

christian wolff “ten exercises” compact disc

exercise 18
exercise 11
exercise 18
exercise 10
exercise 7
exercise 16
exercise 8
exercise 14b
exercise 3
exercise 1
exercise 15
exercise 10

new world press release...

10 exercises exercises 18 (two versions), 7, 16, 8, 14b, 3, 1, 15, 10 (two versions), 11

natacha diels, garrett list, larry polansky, michael riessler, frederic rzewski, robyn schulkowsky, chiyoko szlavnics, christian wolff.

this marvelous recording of these elusive works features composer-supervised performances by a hand-picked group of renowned new-music exponents. “your first encounter with the music of christian wolff leaves you with the impression you’ve just heard (or played, or read) something totally strange, unlike anything else you know. and yet, upon reflection, you realize it is at the same time something completely ordinary and normal, as familiar in its way as any number of repetitive actions characteristic of everyday life, getting up in the morning, going to school, work, church, washing the dishes, performing the daily tasks of home and family.

weird little tunes, sounding as if they had been beamed at some remote point in the universe and then bounced back again as a kind of intergalactic mutant music; recognizable melodic and rhythmic patterns, somehow sewn together in monstrous pairings, sometimes reminiscent of the demons of hieronymus bosch, composites of animals, fish, flowers, and common household objects: there is order, but also constant interruption, intrusions of disorderly reality upon regularity and lawfulness, combining to create an effect of both familiarity and strangeness: shklovsky’s ostranenie.

you could say this music is surrealist—not reproducing familiar forms, but revealing, behind these, life’s unpredictability. you could say it is political; improvisatory; concerned with collaborative, non-hierarchical forms of social organization; but you can’t really say what it is like (although john cage came close when he said, after a performance of the exercises in new york, that it was like the classical music of an unknown civilization).”

—frederic rzewski

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 22nd, 2006

threads:
modern-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80657 cd

morton feldman “the viola in my life” compact disc

the viola in my life
false relationships and the extended ending
why patterns?

new world press release...

morton feldman - the viola in my life

the music on this recording (reissued from cri cd 620) illustrates the essential integrity of the work of morton feldman (1926–1987) and one of its fundamental strengths—its continuously unfolding unanimity of purpose. there are few composers of his generation whose first and last published work (in feldman’s case journey to the end of night of 1949 and piano and string quartet of 1986) span youth and final years with such a concentrated viewpoint.

there are, however, landmarks in the music of feldman that are largely technical and notational. there are the graphic pieces, the first from 1950 and the last from 1964, in which some parameter of composition is not specified (often pitch). there are the “free duration pieces,” both solo and ensemble, in which there is instruction either for sections of the piece or for its entirety. false relationships and the extended ending (1968) is a late example of this kind, although why patterns? (1978) is a variant of the principle. there are also the conventionally notated works in his oeuvre, one of which is the viola in my life (1970).

it may be that feldman’s music will always strike a certain kind of listener as idiosyncratic—a denial of the time-honored ways in which music articulates itself. i think that feldman was deeply offended by this response, by this notion that his music was singular because it was, as some might say, “missing something.” though it is true that his values of graduation can be exceedingly fine, when one enters this scale and comprehends it, something truly new and wonderful opens up in the art of music—a world in which the relative and the absolute become engaged with themselves.

karen phillips, viola
anahid ajemian, matthew raimondi, violin
seymour barab; cello
david tudor, paul jacobs, yuji takahashi, pianos
eberhard blum, paula robison, flute
arthur bloom, clarinet
arnold fromme, trombone
jan williams, richard fitz, raymond desroches, percussion
morton feldman, piano, conductor

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 22nd, 2006

threads:
modern-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80656 cd

peter zummo “zummo with an x” compact disc

song iv (trio)
instruments (1980)
lateral pass (1985)

new world press release...

peter zummo - zummo with an x

arthur russell, amplified cello and voice
bill ruyle, tabla, marimba
peter zummo, trombone
rik albani, trumpet
guy klucevsek, accordion
mustafa ahmed, percussion

with accuracy and humor, peter zummo (born 1948) often describes his unique music as “minimalism plus a whole lot more.” he is an important exponent of the american contemporary classical tradition whose compositions explore the methodologies of not just minimalism, but also jazz, world music, and rock, while seeking to create freedom in ensemble situations. zummo’s realization of the contemporary urge to make music that behaves like “nature in its manner of operation” (john cage) is to encourage spontaneous, individual decisions within a self-structuring, self-negotiating group of performers. his scores provide unique strategies (such as a “matrix of overlapping systems,” freely modulating repetition rates, etc.) and materials for achieving that aim. song iv (1985), a trio version of the final song from the four-song suite composed for the trisha brown dance company’s lateral pass, is a continuous tabla-and-amplified-cello groove with trombone (with voice multiphonics) and vocal (russell) melodies and harmonies. instruments (1980) is a composition in seven movements for duet, trio and quartet. short phrases based on intervallic jumps are repeated at individual repetition rates; the ensemble listens for a unison playing of the phrase, and reverses the phrase at that moment. different notes sound together in unplanned ways, resulting in combination (bass) tones. the complete version of lateral pass (1985) makes its first appearance on disc and features a previously unissued performance of song iv for quintet. zummo with an x is an essential document for anyone interested in the multifaceted evolution of american experimental music, especially in the vibrant downtown new york scene of the 1970s and ’80s.

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
june 22nd, 2007

threads:
modern-composition
electro-acoustic-composition
1950s-electronic
1960s-electronic
1970s-electronic
digital-musics
musique-concrète

new world (usa) #nw 80654 cd

vladimir ussachevsky “electronic and acoustic works 1957-1972” compact disc

metamorphosis (5:22) 1957
linear contrasts (3:42) 1958
wireless fantasy (4:36) 1960
of wood and brass (4:21) 1965
computer piece no. 1 (3:42) 1968
two sketches for a computer piece (3:08) 1971
three scenes from the creation (20:46) 1960; rev. 1973
missa brevis (17:30) 1972

more recent disc from new world (part of their cri reissue campaign) compiling the few electronic pieces absent from the two earlier ussachevsky-themed collections (and a few that they’ve already released !), along with a pair of choral works...

the first five 50s & 60s electronic pieces are essential for the ussachevsky enthusiast/completist, but this is by no means the one to start with (aim for “film music” first, then the “pioneers of electronic music” disc second...)

new world press release...

in 1950, the columbia university music department requisitioned a tape recorder to use in teaching and for recording concerts. in 1951, the first tape recorder arrived, an ampex 400, and vladimir ussachevsky (1911–1990), then a junior faculty member, was assigned a job that no one else wanted: the care of the tape recorder. this job was to have important consequences for ussachevsky and the medium he developed. electronic music was born.

over the next ten years, ussachevsky and his collaborators established the columbia-princeton electronic music center, which ussachevsky directed for twenty years. the center became one of the best-known and most prolific sources of electronic music in the world. this composer portrait (originally issued as cri 813) features six of his pioneering works in the medium as well as two of his choral works, an aspect of his output that was just as important to him.

the final two works on this cd make extensive use of the human voice. the first of these, three scenes from the creation (1960; rev. 1973), is based on texts from ovid’s metamorphosis and the akkadian creation epic enuma elish, telling the story of the primordial gods and their struggle to create order out of chaos. the recorded choral tracks were edited, assembled, and manipulated "with electronic accompaniment" in the studio. the prologue was played in concert and also issued on a columbia recording. the interlude, originally interlude and conflict, dates from the same time and used recorded soprano and bass voices with electronic and concrète sounds and a live mezzo-soprano. in addition to the vocal and electronic sounds, recordings of piano, bell, and chinese dinner plate sound are used, modified with the studio techniques that the composer had developed over the years.

in the early 1970s, ussachevsky returned to acoustic music after nearly two decades of immersion in the electronic medium. it was natural for him to use choral music as the medium of this return. the composer wrote that "growing up as i did in the russian orthodox church, serving as reader and altar boy, the sound of the choir singing the traditional service and works by all the best nineteenth-century russian composers left an indelible impression…" the missa brevis (1972) uses the traditional core texts of the mass—kyrie, sanctus, benedictus, and agnus dei—without any particular reference to electronic music.

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 22nd, 2006

threads:
1960s-electronic
1970s-electronic
musique-concrète
electro-acoustic-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80653 cd

“new music for electronic and recorded media: women in electronic music—1977” compact disc

music of the spheres (1938) (johanna m. beyer)
world rhythms (1975) (annea lockwood)
bye bye butterfly (1965) (pauline oliveros)
appalachian grove i (1974) (laurie spiegel)
i could sit here all day (1976) (megan roberts)
points (1973–74) (ruth anderson)
new york social life (1977) (laurie anderson)
time to go (1977) (laurie anderson)

classic compilation (originally released on the 1750 arch label in 1977) containing a thorough selection of pieces by women composers from the 60s & 70s.

new world press release...

new music for electronic and recorded media: women in electronic music—1977

this is a long-awaited reissue of the cri cd of the classic 1750 arch lp.

"the music on this album exhibits an exciting, wide-open, freewheeling approach to the medium of electronic music which has come to be typical of this genre in the late 1970s. no longer are composers obsessively concerned with the agonizing, expressionistic, and purely “electronic” (synthesized) sound formulas which marked much of this music composed between the mid fifties and the late sixties. instead, today we have composers willing to mix media and sonic materials in thoroughly inventive ways to achieve ends which are new-sounding, and often more engaging, than that of the “academic” avant-garde.

this is the outgrowth of a fundamental change in concerns which has been evolving not only among the composers on this album but also in a growing segment of the musical avant-garde, of which these members are some of the most fecund and inspired. these new sources of inspiration certainly were not as widely shared fifteen years ago. several composers represented here are deeply concerned with eastern influences: meditation, healing, trance, states of serenity. others are inspired by traditional (or “ethnic”) musics and their subsequent metamorphoses into such popular forms as rock and roll. still others bring to bear a sense of wit and satire, rarely a prominent feature of avant-garde music in the early 1960s.

this first anthology of women’s electronic music demonstrates great refinement and skill at work in a variety of different styles, several of which are unfamiliar or new even to those who follow contemporary music. the fact that these pieces are more listenable than that of the sixties avant-garde does not point to a musical regression as some critics have overeagerly assumed when discussing modern works using, say, consonant harmonic structures. rather, and i think this is common denominator for these pieces and something which women composers and artists have been instrumental in legitimizing again for this period in time, these works signify a new consciousness of the relationship of art to human life and the important and positive interaction which can be the role of a more personalized art in our day-to-day experience.”

—charles amirkhanian, august 1977

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
september 12th, 2006

threads:
live-electronic
modern-composition
concert-recordings
circuit-bending

best of 2006 !!!

new world (usa) #nw 80651 cd

david tudor / gordon mumma “gordon mumma & david tudor” compact disc

david tudor rainforest (1968) 20:10
gordon mumma very small size mograph (1962) 0:26
gordon mumma small size mograph (1964) 2:09
gordon mumma gestures ii section x (1961) 0:23
gordon mumma gestures ii section 7 (1960) 0:53
gordon mumma medium size mograph (1964) 6:04
gordon mumma very small size mograph (1963) 0:15
gordon mumma very small size mograph (1962) 0:27
david tudor rainforest (1969) 41:35
gordon mumma song without words (1996) 3:06

one of the last missing corner-pieces of the historical live-electronic-music / circuit-bending puzzle has long been the recording of david tudor’s “rainforest i” - thankfully new world have reissued here not one but two different performances of the piece (one in rio de janeiro, 1968, the other at cornell, 1969.)

any sentient soul interested in the roots of contemporary electronic squawk/chirrup will see the release of this disc as a blessed event. highest recommendation.

new world press release...

david tudor: rainforest

gordon mumma: 4 mographs, 2 sections from gestures ii, and song without words

david tudor and gordon mumma, keyboards and electronics

this historic recording features the first-ever release of the two earliest surviving recordings of david tudor’s seminal work, rainforest. sandwiched in between are six keyboard works by gordon mumma in recordings featuring the composer and his close collaborator, tudor. together, these works constitute a fascinating and historically important document of the 1960s avant-garde in america.

in early 1968, merce cunningham created a new dance whose apparent impetus was colin turnbull’s the forest people, with its account of life among the mbuti pygmies of the ituri forest in zaire. for the music, cunningham turned to tudor and for the first time asked him for an original work. when he learned that the dance was to be called rainforest, tudor said, “oh, then i’ll put a lot of raindrops in it.” raindrops were just the beginning: using audio transducers originally designed by the navy for hearing under and above water simultaneously—eight small objects programmed with signals from sound generators, phonograph cartridges, and two sets of speakers—tudor created a world of sound in perpetual but unpredictable motion, a steady state at once abstract and evocative. the first recording, made from the teatro novo orchestra pit on july 30, is an excellent document of the sound character of tudor’s rainforest work when it was performed with the cunningham dance company in those early years.

the second recording documents the first concert performance of rainforest, in march 1969, several months after the rio de janeiro dance performance. the venue was a large conference space at cornell university, ithaca, new york. the equipment was set on tables in the center of the space, with the audience seated around the performers. four separate channels of sound were used and widely spaced, with two in the foreground and two in the background. the sound sources had also expanded from the earlier cunningham performances, with tudor now adding recordings of small sounds from insects and birds, in conjunction with the previous electronic sounds, all modified by his acoustical resonant devices. the interactive circuitry was fundamentally the same as previously, but expanded with new devices and interactive connections.

gordon mumma’s gestures ii and the mographs are two sets of pieces for two pianists, composed between 1958 and 1964. during the 1960s robert ashley and gordon mumma toured with their concerts of new music for two pianos, including parts of gestures ii and some of the mographs. later, some of these two works were performed in recording experiments by mumma and david tudor. two sections from the mumma and tudor recordings, x and 7, are presented on this cd. each of the eleven completed mographs includes the year of composition in its title. the first two words of each title indicate the general length of that particular composition, ranging from very small size mograph 1962 to the only solo piece, large size mograph 1962. the structure and activities of each mograph were derived from seismographic recorded p-waves and s-waves of earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions. these seismograph patterns were part of 1960s cold-war research that attempted to verify the differences between their seismic disturbance sources.

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
august 24th, 2006

threads:
modern-composition
musique-concrète
electro-acoustic-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80650 cd

earle brown “selected pieces” compact disc

times five
nine rare bits (1965)
octet i for eight loudspeakers (1953)
december 1952
novara (1962)
music for violin cello and piano (1952)
from folio: november 1952 december 1952 four systems
music for cello and piano (1954–55)

overview of earle brown’s early compositions...
contains the suitably raw “octet i for eight loudspeakers” from 1953 !!!

new world press release...

earle brown selected works 1952–1965

this long-awaited reissue of the cri recording of earle brown’s (1926–2002) music is the best overview of his seminal early works.

“it is obviously a great pleasure for me that cri is re-releasing its 1974 recording of my work, and an even greater pleasure that i am able to add to the repertoire. the performance of times five and novara (recorded in holland) still seem very fine representations of the works and are performed brilliantly by the dutch musicians. december 1952 as realized by the late, brilliant pianist and composer david tudor is, in my opinion, the best of many performances he made of this graphic score. it is fascinating to hear the realizations by michael daugherty of november 1952, december 1952 and four systems (all published in “folio” (1952–54)—immensely inventive and marvelously performed on piano, tape and computer, with the newer technology that was not available to tudor at the time he recorded his version of december 1952. this recording of nine rare-bits is one of six versions that antoinette vischer (who commissioned the work) and george gruntz surprised me with when i returned to basel after my lectures in stockholm in 1965. although i very specifically compose the sound events, it is an “open-form” score, subject to innumerable formal shapes, arranged by the performers themselves.

music for violin, cello and piano is a very early (1952) twelve-tone serial piece in very strictly metric notation. it uses schillinger-suggested “serial” techniques, very similar to messiaen, as it turned out. in contrast, music for cello and piano is a completely subjectively composed work, in what i called “time notation” (contrary to metric”) which is now referred to as “proportional notation.” i feel this recording to be an extremely authentic and artistically fulfilled representation of these works written between 1952 and 1965 (not all that i wrote during that time, i hasten to add). i hope that future recordings will as successfully represent my work written between 1965 and 2050 as this does the early work.”

— earle brown, january 29, 2000 (from the original liner notes)

performers: govert jurriaanse, flute; arthur moore, trombone; teresia tieu, harp; jaring walta, violin; harro ruijsenaars, cello; ton hartsuiker, piano; john floore, trumpet, harry sparnaay, bass clarinet; roelof van driesten, violin; gerrit oldeman, viola; earle brown, conductor; matthew raimondi, violin; david soyer, cello; david tudor, piano; michael daugherty, piano, computer, electronics; dorothea von albrecht, cello; christine olbrich, piano; antoinette vischer, george gruntz, harpsichords

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 28th, 2007

threads:
modern-composition
experimental-instruments
minimalism-drones

new world (usa) #nw 80646 cd

barbara benary “sun on snow” compact disc

aural shoehorning (25:07) 1997

plaingsong (7:32)
northwest (3:30)
smudging (5:37)
amtrak (5:21)
tujuh (3:07)
sun on snow (14:23) 1985

i (4:15)
ii (2:30)
iii (4:28)
iv (1:55)
v (1:15)
barang i (4:00) 1975
barang ii (5:25) 1975
downtown steel (11:39) 1993

i (6:46)
ii (4:53)

new world press release...

among the many composers who have drawn inspiration from the music of indonesia, the one whose outlook became most pervaded by the structure of gamelan music may be barbara benary (b 1946), co-founder and guiding spirit of new york’s gamelan son of lion. a quiet, self-effacing presence on the new york music scene for almost four decades now, benary has maintained a low profile, but behind the scenes she is well connected. a child of manhattan’s conceptualist movement, she was the designated violinist of early minimalism, a pioneer in american gamelan, and an early example of an increasingly frequent type, the ethnomusicologist-turned-composer. chances are you’ve never heard her music on compact disc before this, but new york’s downtown scene has regarded her highly for a long time. hers is a spiritual music, and the spirituality resides in the universality of her lines, universal because they are simple, particular to no one culture. like harrison and virgil thomson, benary has a faith in the power of music’s most basic elements, which she knits into intricate patterns before letting them unravel again.

the title aural shoehorning (1997) refers to the listener’s tendency to confront unusual tuning systems, such as those of javanese gamelan, by trying to “shoehorn” them into the framework of our familiar diatonic scales. heterophony is the overall theme of the piece, and the various ways in which a gamelan and a diatonic ensemble of clarinet/bass clarinet and keyboard percussion can interact as a mixed marriage in which neither partner attempts to convert the other. barang 1 & 2 (1975) are solo and duo explorations of a javanese pentatonic mode called barang. sun on snow (1985) is based on a poem of five lines, five one-syllable words per line, which can be read or sung both horizontally and vertically. the basic melody’s pitches are derived by assigning notes on the basis of number of letters in each word. the melody is then developed and elaborated in five variations. downtown steel (1993) is an adaptation for the instruments of the downtown ensemble of an earlier piece, hot-rolled steel, written for gamelan son of lion, whose keyboards are made of that material. the structure of the piece is based on an english bell-ringing permutation known as grandsire doubles.

members of downtown ensemble & gamelan son of lion:

joseph kubera, piano
steven silverstein, clarinet, bass clarinet
phyllis clark, soprano, percussion
barbara benary, violin, gamelan
daniel goode, clarinet, gamelan
jody kruskal, concertina, gamelan
chris nappi, marimba
nick didkovsky, electric guitar, percussion
jon gibson, soprano sax
peter zummo, trombone
chris nappi, vibraphone, marimba, drum set
bill ruyle, marimba
peter thompson, clarinet
marcus rojas, tuba
david demnitz, patrick grant, lisa karrer, laura liben, david simons, gamelan

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
august 24th, 2006

threads:
1950s-electronic
1960s-electornic
1970s-electronic
electro-acoustic-composition
musique-concrète
1960s-electronic
analogue-synth

new world (usa) #nw 80644 cd

“pioneers of electronic music” compact disc

vladimir ussachevsky - sonic contours (7:19) 1952
otto luening - low speed (3:41) 1952
otto luening - invention in twelve notes (3:42) 1952
otto luening - fantasy in space (2:51) 1952
otto luening & vladimir ussachevsky - incantation (2:32) 1953
otto luening - moonflight (2:55) 1968
vladimir ussachevsky - piece for tape recorder (5:38) 1956
pril smiley - kolyosa (6:37) 1970
bülent arel - stereo electronic music no. 2 (14:18) 1970
vladimir ussachevsky - computer piece no. 1 (3:42) 1968
vladimir ussachevsky - two sketches for a computer piece (sketch 1) (0:56) 1971
vladimir ussachevsky - two sketches for a computer piece (sketch 2) (2:10) 1971
mario davidovsky - synchronisms no. 5 (8:32) 1969
alice shields - the transformation of ani (9:04) 1970

essential disc, containing the earliest electronic pieces by vladimir ussachevsky and otto luening, originally released on the 1952 desto lp “tape music: an historic concert,” plus a few key works composed at the columbia-princeton electronic music center during the tail-end of the 60s under ussachevsky’s tutelage...

while this doesn’t contain my personal favorite selection of ussachevsky’s music (for that refer to the “film music” disc :: new world #nw 80389) the pril smiley, bülent arel, and alice shields pieces are all entirely bonkers... the leaps and bounds in both complexity & frequency-range between the ussachevsky/luening 50s material and that from 15 years later as far a single-disc overview of historical east-coast electronic music, this can’t be beat ...

new world press release...

works by vladimir ussachevsky, otto luening, pril smiley, bülent arel, mario davidovsky, alice shields

in 1950, the columbia university music department requisitioned a tape recorder to use in teaching and for recording concerts. in 1951, the first tape recorder arrived, an ampex 400, and vladimir ussachevsky, then a junior faculty member, was assigned a job that no one else wanted: the care of the tape recorder. this job was to have important consequences for ussachevsky and the medium he developed. electronic music was born.

over the next ten years, ussachevsky and his collaborators established the columbia-princeton electronic music center, which ussachevsky directed for twenty years. it was the first large electronic music center in the united states, thanks to the path-breaking support of the rockefeller foundation and encouragement from two of the country’s leading universities. the center became one of the best-known and most prolific sources of electronic music in the world. all of the music on this historic reissue (originally released on cri) is the result of the pioneering work of the center and its composers.

the guest composers and columbia-associated composers who have produced pieces at the center include bülent arel, luciano berio, mario davidovsky, jacob druckman, arthur kreiger, daria semegen, pril smiley, and edgard varèse. ussachevsky’s own students at the center included jon appleton, wendy carlos, charles dodge, robert moog, alice shields, harvey sollberger, and charles wuorinen. of the seven composers most closely associated with the center from its early years, six are present on this disc.

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best of 2006 !!!

new world (usa) #nw 80632 cd

gordon mumma “electronic music of theatre and public activity” compact disc

megaton for wm.burroughs (22:34) 1963
conspiracy 8 (18:13) 1970
cybersonic cantilevers (19:16) 1973
cirqualz (5:43) 1980

... four of mumma’s all-time classic live-electronic works, together in one handy reference-pack ...

new world press release...

electronic music for theatre and public activity

gordon mumma with the once group

gordon mumma (b. 1935) has played a pioneering role in the development and evolution of “live-electronic” music. “live-electronics” as a concept and practice appears to have originated in the united states in the late 1950s, outside the few institutional electronic studios and often in the context of innovative theatre activity. from its inception, it frequently involved two processes: (1) live performance with accompanying or interacting sound materials on magnetic tape; and (2) the use of electronic circuitry as sound-modifying and sound-producing instruments.

beginning with his classic megaton for wm. burroughs of 1963, mumma’s live-electronic and cybersonic works of the 1960s and 1970s, especially medium size mograph (1963) and hornpipe (1967), display his resourceful use of both live-electronic processes. cybersonic cantilevers (1973) extends them to include the active participation of audience members, many of them children and teenagers who were quick to grasp the artistic potential of cybersonic technology, while conspiracy 8 (1969–70) is an early example of live interaction between performers and computer. a major addition to the contemporary music discography, this is essential listening for anyone interested in the history of electronic music.

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new world (usa) #nw 80628 cd

alvin lucier “wind shadows” double compact disc set

in memoriam stuart marshall (1993/rev. 2003)
40 rooms (1996)
in memoriam jon higgins (1984)
letters (1992)
q (1996)
a tribute to james tenney (1986)
bar lazy j (2003)
fideliotrio (1987)
wind shadows (1994)

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wind shadows

the barton workshop:

john anderson, clarinet
frank denyer, piano
james fulkerson, trombone
marieke keser, violin
judith van swaay, cello
jos tieman, double bass

the music on these cds takes us into a new realm of music making, one that alvin lucier (b. 1931) has defined for us and one that demands that we start to listen anew. his work has been more often described in terms of science than of art as if it were a series of quasi-scientific experiments, but to put the emphasis here is to miss the point, for its purpose is never “explanatory” (the goal of science) but, like all art, “revelatory.” this is not to suggest that the composer has some spiritual agenda in the usual sense of this term. on the contrary, it is the physical behavior of sound itself that he so elegantly reveals, each work unveiling an otherwise hidden or ephemeral aspect of aural phenomena and allowing us time to witness its beauty. he achieves this by ruthlessly excluding any trace of self-expression, or indeed anything extraneous to the phenomenon itself.

the barton workshop has been the only group to really work closely with lucier in terms of doing “portraits” of his work (the first in 1995), commissioning new works (40 rooms, bar lazy j, and q) and performing older/extant pieces. this 2-cd set is the fruit of this long collaborative process.

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new world (usa) #nw 80625 cd

alvin curran “maritime rites” double compact disc set

rattlesnake mountain
coastline
mine
improvisation (joseph celli)
soft shoulder
program introductions (disc 1)
from center of rainbow
sounding
improvisation (george lewis)
ice
dew
food
crew
ape
maritime rites
program introductions (disc 2)

new world press release...

featuring the foghorns and other maritime sounds of the u.s. eastern seaboard and solo improvisations by john cage, joseph celli, clark coolidge, alvin curran, jon gibson, malcolm goldstein, steve lacy, george lewis, pauline oliveros, and leo smith.

in the middle 1970s i began to formulate ideas and projects leading to the making of music outside the concert halls—often in large open and naturally beautiful sites. ports, rivers, lakes, caves, quarries, fields, and woods, always ready sources of my musical inspiration, now became my new music theaters. —alvin curran

maritime rites is a series of ten environmental concerts for radio composed by alvin curran (b. 1938) in 1985. this series features the eastern seaboard of the united states as a musical source in collaboration with improvised musical performances by ten distinguished artists in the american new-music scene: john cage, joseph celli, clark coolidge, jon gibson, malcolm goldstein, steve lacy, george lewis, pauline oliveros, leo smith and alvin curran. the programs use specifically recorded natural sounds as musical counterpoint to the soloists whose improvisations are freely restructured and mixed by curran. featured here are the foghorns of virginia, maryland, delaware, new jersey, new york, connecticut, rhode island, massachusetts, new hampshire, maine and new brunswick, canada. also included are maritime bells, gongs, whistles and regional bird and animal life. comments from lighthouse keepers, coast guard personnel and other local people are woven impressionistically throughout.

rich in ambient detail, maritime rites presents the foghorn as indigenous american “found” music par excellence and the source of one of the most enduring minimal musics around us. the series is also a comprehensive aural documentary of our regional and national maritime heritage including such historical sounds as the nantucket ii lightship, now out of service and doing service as a museum docked in boston harbor. the lightship’s horn is the only one of its kind (and the loudest!) on the east coast and was recorded extensively during an exclusive session ten miles off shore with the special cooperation of the ship’s crew. as the foghorn gives way to other electronic navigational aids, this work may serve as a historical document of some of the most beautiful and mysterious sounds of the sea.

as an expression of sonic geography, maritime rites brings together different areas of the seaboard in a single musical moment. the series was expressly conceived for radio, the only medium that can safely accommodate over sixty foghorns at once and bring an entire coastline, seemingly live, into anyone’s home! an essential document for anyone interested in sound art.

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new world (usa) #nw 80624 cd

harry partch “the harry partch collection, volume 4” compact disc

the bewitched - a dance satire (75:43) 1955

new world press release...

meticulously remastered from the original mono master tapes!

the bewitched was partch’s first work solely intended for dance (and mime-dance at that; he was not overly enamored in his lifetime of so-called “modern dance”). drawing heavily from his deep affection for the music-theatrical performance traditions of greek theater, as well as those from africa, bali, and chinese opera, partch conceived of a contemporary american music ritual-theater where musicians not only play, but also function at times as movers-singers-actors. such is the case of the bewitched, where the instruments are the set, in front of (and around) which dancers “dance,” but where the onstage musicians also move and sing. partch’s masterpiece has been lovingly remastered from the original mono masters and the 24-page booklet includes never-before-published photographs from productions of the bewitched. this is the definitive document of this very important work.

“the bewitched is in the tradition of world-wide ritual theatre. it is the opposite of specialized. i conceived and wrote it in california in the period 1952-55, following the several performances of my version of sophocles' oedipus. in spirit, if not wholly in content, it is a satyr-play. it is a seeking for release—through satire, whimsy, magic, ribaldry—from the catharsis of tragedy. it is an essay toward a miraculous abeyance of civilized rigidity, in the feeling that the modern spirit might thereby find some ancient and magical sense of rebirth. each of the 12 scenes is a theatrical unfolding of nakedness, a psychological strip-tease, or—a diametric reversal, which has the effect of underlining the complementary character, the strange affinity, of seeming opposites.” — harry partch

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new world (usa) #nw 80623 cd

harry partch “the harry partch collection, volume 3” compact disc

the dreamer that remains—a study in loving (10:29) 1972
rotate the body in all its planes—ballad for gymnasts (8:51) 1961
windsong (11:36) 1958
water! water! — an intermission with prologues and epilogues (37:49) 1961

new world press release...

the four works on this newly remastered cd are eloquent testimony to harry partch’s aesthetic of corporeality. the music he composed for the dreamer that remains, for rotate the body in all its planes, for windsong, and for water! water!, was intended as only one component in the total artistic experience. in these works music joins with drama, with film, with dance, even with gymnastics, as integral parts of the composer’s vision.

“the eloquent and affecting the dreamer that remains (1972) was partch’s last work. it was commissioned by the patroness betty freeman for her film on partch which was directed by stephen pouliot. rotate the body in all its planes (1961) was a spin-off of the “tumble on” sequence in partch’s large-scale theatre piece revelation in the courthouse park. it was premiered at the national collegiate gymnasts championship in 1961. windsong (1958) was also written for film, the soundtrack to a film by madeline tourtelot in which partch saw the greek myth of daphne and apollo. (a later version of the work was named daphne of the dunes). finally, somewhat akin to a broadway musical, water! water! (1961) is perhaps partch’s most lively and lighthearted work. it pokes fun at many targets, especially the rush of audiences for water at the interval; thus the subtitle: "an intermission with prologues and epilogues.” — jon szanto

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new world (usa) #nw 80622 cd

harry partch “the harry partch collection, volume 2” compact disc

u.s. highball—a musical account of a transcontinental hobo trip (25:20) 1943, rev. 1955
san francisco—a setting of the cries of two newsboys on a foggy night in the twenties (2:28) 1943, rev. 1955
the letter (2:48) 1943, rev. 1972
barstow—eight hitchhiker inscriptions from a highway railing at barstow, california (9:57) 1941, rev. 1968
and on the seventh day petals fell in petaluma (35:50) 1963–64, rev. 1966

new world press release...

harry partch’s compositions of the 1940s—and to some extent his work in general—have remained until recently an unwritten chapter in the history of american music. and yet it was these very pieces—the collection of four works he would later collectively entitle the wayward—that brought him to the attention of the new york musical world. his concert of these pieces for the league of composers (april 22, 1944) established for him a small but permanent reputation as a musical maverick who had wandered off well-worn tracks and had developed a sort of lateral extension of his art, independently of any of the main circles of american music.

the musical starting point of the compositions of the wayward is the inflections and rhythms of everyday american speech. from the beginnings of his mature output in 1930 partch had been devoted to what he called “the intrinsic music of spoken words,” and these four works capture something of the spontaneous musicality of the conversations of the hoboes he befriended during the depression. in their original form these pieces used only the small collection of instruments partch had built or customized by 1943: adapted viola, adapted guitar, chromelodeon, and kithara. the versions recorded here are all later reworkings, sometimes with only small changes (as in the case of san francisco), and sometimes involving a substantial amount of recomposition (as in the case of u.s. highball).

the final work on this disc dates from twenty years later than the compositions of the wayward, and represents one of the high points of partch’s later instrumental idiom. and on the seventh day petals fell in petaluma was composed in petaluma, california, in march–april 1964, and revised at various times and places until the completion of the final copy of the score in san diego in october 1966. it marks a radical departure from the theater works he had written at the university of illinois in the early 1960s, and shows a renewed concentration on technical innovation and on fusing his activities as composer and instrument-builder within the context of a single composition. newly remastered.

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new world (usa) #nw 80621 cd

harry partch “the harry partch collection, volume 1” compact disc

eleven intrustions (20:04) 1949-50
castor and pollux—a dance for the twin rhythms of gemini (15:23) 1952
ring around the moon—a dance fantasm for here and now (9:21) 1952
even wild horses—dance music for an absent drama (22:39) 1952
ulysses at the edge (6:39) 1955

new world press release...

this newly remastered reissue marks a welcome return to the catalog of the first volume of the classic 4-cd collection that was formerly available on the cri label. the works recorded on this disc span the first six years of what harry partch (1901–1974), slightly tongue-in-cheek, called the “third period” of his creative life. they show him moving away from the obsession with “the intrinsic music of spoken words” that had characterized his earlier output (the vocal works of 1930–33 and 1941–45) and towards an instrumental idiom, predominantly percussive in nature. this path was to take him through the “music-dance drama” king oedipus (1951) — the culmination of his “spoken word” manner—to the “dance satire” the bewitched (1954–55), in which his new percussive idiom manifests itself. the three works on this disc show partch before, during, and after this period of transition.

in their quiet, forlorn way, the eleven intrusions are among the most compelling and beautiful of partch’s works. the individual pieces were composed at various times between august 1949 and december 1950, and only later gathered together as a cycle. nonetheless they form a unified whole, with a nucleus of eight songs framed by two instrumental preludes and an essentially instrumental postlude.

although foreshadowed by the dance sequences of king oedipus, the plectra and percussion dances (1952) are the first of partch’s major works to be wholly instrumental in conception. they stand in relation to oedipus as a satyr play in relation to a greek tragedy—hence the work’s subtitle, “satyr-play music for dance theater.” he felt that after the prolonged period of composition and production of oedipus it was “almost a necessity to give vent to feelings and ideas, whims and caprices, even nonsense, that seem to have no place in tragedy.”

the final work on this disc is ulysses at the edge, written at partch’s studio at gate 5 in july 1955. ulysses, which partch describes as a “minor adventure in rhythm,” is unique among his mature compositions in that, in its original form, it did not call for any of his own instruments. the version recorded here, for alto and baritone saxophones, diamond marimba, boo, cloud-chamber bowls, and speaking voice, is considered the third version of the piece.

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new world (usa) #nw 80612 cd

james tenney “postal pieces” double compact disc set

maximusic (1965)
swell piece (1967)
a rose is a rose is a round (1970)
beast (1971)
swell piece #2 (1971)
having never written a note for percussion (1971)
koan (1971)
for percussion perhaps
or . . . (night) (1971)
swell piece #3 (1971)
cellogram (1971)
august harp (1971)

sublime set of meditative psycho-acoustic pieces by the late james tenney, composed during the early 70s.

new world press release...

postal pieces (2 cds)

the barton workshop

jos zwaanenburg, flutes; alex geller, cello; nina hitz, cello; marieke keser, violin; jacob plooij, violin; judith van swaaij, cello; elisabeth smalt, viola; john anderson, clarinets; gertjan loot, trumpet; krijn van arnhem, bassoon, contrabassoon; frank denyer, melodica; charles van tassel, baritone; theo van arnhem, contrabass; jos tieman, contrabass; james fulkerson, conductor

james tenney (b. 1934) is one of the most important american composers and theorists of the past fifty years. for a very long time, his work was known mainly to other musicians and its tremendous influence was belied by its obscurity. in the past twenty years, however, as his music and writings have been more and more published, recorded, performed, and studied, his place in the context of american contemporary music has become far better understood. he has pioneered musical fields as diverse as computer music, tuning theory, and integrating ideas from acoustics and music cognition into his work. tenney has also been important as a teacher, performer, and scholar of other radical american composers.

this cd contains recordings of the complete set of his postal pieces, written primarily during a very brief tenure at california institute of the arts in the early 1970s. these works, although frequently performed over the years, have not been recorded (with a few exceptions). this recording is a natural and important companion to the recent new world reissue of tenney’s computer and electronic music from the 1960s. both collections represent complete, highly individualistic and essential bodies of work by a major american artist.

the postal pieces, which tenney called “scorecards,” are a remarkable series of eleven short works printed on postcards. each card contains a complete if minimally stated work to be performed by instrumentalists. these pieces elucidate to a large degree some of tenney’s bedrock compositional ideas. each is a kind of meditation on acoustics, form, or hyper-attention to a single performance gesture. this set is essential listening for anyone interested in the evolution of american experimental music.

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new world (usa) #nw 80604 cd

alvin lucier “vespers and other early works” compact disc

vespers (1969)
chambers (1968)
north american time capsule (1967)
(middletown) memory space (1970)
elegy for albert anastasia (1961-1963)

new world press release...

vespers and other early works

alvin lucier (b. 1931) is best known for his pioneering work in the mid-sixties in the exploration of sonic environments, particularly sounds that we would never perceive under ordinary circumstances. vespers and other early works restores to the catalog several of his key works from that time. in vespers (1969) performers with sondols (sonar-dolphin), hand-held pulse wave oscillators, explore the acoustic characteristics of given indoor or outdoor spaces by monitoring the echoes of the pulse waves off the walls, floors and ceilings, as well as any objects or obstacles in range of the sound waves. over time, the listener receives an acoustic signature of the room. in chambers (1968), battery-operated radios, tape recorders, and electronically powered toys of various kinds are hidden in paper bags, shoes, kettles, and small suitcases and other small resonant environments. as performers carry these small “rooms” into larger ones, such as concert halls, football stadiums and underground cisterns, the sounds, already altered by the acoustics of the small environments, are altered a second time by the acoustics of the larger ones. this version was recorded in 2002.

north american time capsule (1967), for voices and vocoder, is described metaphorically by lucier as a message to listeners who don’t know about us. these could be very remote and exotic humans or the fabled “beings” in some other part of the universe. the message is encoded in accordance with the empirical fact that purely electronic signals are more easily transmitted through space (and through time) than the more complex waveforms of speech.

(middletown) memory space (1970) is a reenactment of the composition called “(hartford) memory space, for any number of instrumental players with recordings of environmental sounds.” the instructions for the original (city) composition say: “for performances in places other than hartford, use the name of the place of performance in parentheses at the beginning of the title.” the instructions tell the performers to go out into the city and record, by any means—electronic recording, graphic notation, or memory—the sounds of the city, and to return to the inside performance space at any time and “re-create, solely by means of your voices and instruments and with the aid of memory devices (without additions, deletions, improvisation, interpretation) those outside sound situations.” elegy for albert anastasia (1961–1963) is described as composed “for electromagnetic tape using very low sounds most of which are below human audibility.” liner notes by robert ashley.

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new world (usa) #nw 80597 cd

paul chihara “forever escher • shinju • wind song” compact disc

forever escher (20;06) 1993-94
shinju (ballet in one act) (22:27) 1973
wind song (cello concerto) (18:45) 1971

new world press release...

paul chihara: forever escher/ shinju/ wind song
cat. no.: 80597
genre: classical

the works of paul seiko chihara (b. 1938) are informed by and continue the rich tradition of the association of music with theater, dance, and film; for at the center of his music lie the conflictual actions of drama, and even the purifying cathartic power of ritual. indeed, not only his music for film and stage, but much of his purely instrumental music reflects his concern for narrative and/or protagonist situations. this tendency is made manifest by such formal devices as pitting a single voice against a sound mass of fused instrumental groups in such works as wind song (1971), or by contrasting and interpenetrating distinct instrumental choirs in an agonistic exchange of timbral colors, as in forever escher (1993–94).

forever escher (double quartet), an octet for saxophone quartet and traditional string quartet combined, is a tour de force of polyphonic writing and acoustical balance. chihara allows each quartet its unique timbral identity (though from time to time they merge) while interchanging and metamorphosing much, but not all, of the melodic and harmonic material associated with each.

the music of shinju (1973) is most notable for its integration of electronically processed authentic ancient japanese song and instrumental music into the orchestral fabric. for his sound source, chihara recorded performances by two japanese master musicians and then transformed these ancient melodies and ensembles via the technique of tape manipulation known as musique concrète. the otherworldly atmosphere evoked by the musique concrète passages greatly enhances the shroud of doom that begins to spread from the first sounds of the orchestral prelude.

the idea for wind song came to chihara while he was working on a re-composition of the cello concerto in a minor by the german composer robert volkmann. while reconstructing the concerto, he began to collate impressions emanating from his interaction with volkmann’s material, eventually forming a concept for a cello concerto of his own. at first, he conceived of a concerto of “heroic” proportions, like those formally typical of nineteenth-century romanticism. what he settled on, however, was a music that is at times both penetratingly understated and vitally lyrical. like the natural phenomenon of wind itself, this music undulates precariously from the subtlety of a spectral whisper to seemingly inconsolable melancholic howls, touching all the gradations between the two extremes.

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new world (usa) #nw 80595 cd

barney childs “a music; that it might be ...” compact disc

take 5 (3:50) 1962
a music; that it might be.... (11:38) 1973
grande fantasie de concert (“masters of the game”) (4:13) 1990
london rice wine (4:35) 1973
pastoral (5:59) 1983
instant winners (9:55) 1986
changes for three oboes (6:02) 1959
quartet for bassoons (7:27) 1958
the golden bubble (9:35) 1967
variation on night river music (0:59) 1969

new world press release...

“sometimes i wonder about what we are doing: the writing of music hardly anyone wants to hear is pretty well the bottom of the list in terms of today’s consumer-approved activities although i concede there is something to be said for the preparation of a dictionary of pre-medieval finno-ugric. anyway, there’s the music; may those who wish use it as they may please.” — barney childs

barney childs (1926–2000) is particularly noted for his innovative and influential scores that invite their performers’ collaboration in the very construction of the works and in which indeterminacy and improvisation sit side by side with traditional forms of structure and notation; his early works show influences of hindemith and carter. eclectic in nature, childs’ compositions freely explored diverse avenues of musical thought and drew inspiration from many sources, including traditional western concert music (especially that of such composers as hindemith, ives, ruggles, and copland), the open form works of john cage, and jazz of all styles.

the present recording is the first that is dedicated exclusively to his works and comprises ten compositions for woodwinds, including the now defunct e flat contrabass sarrusophone. the broad scope of childs’s eclectic compositional style is reflected in the techniques and structural elements used in these pieces—indeterminacy, improvisation, electronics, extended techniques, graphic notation scores, microtones, silence, and the spoken word, among others.

phillip rehfeldt, woodwinds
ron george, percussion
marco schindelmann, reader

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new world (usa) #nw 80585 cd

kenneth gaburo “five works” compact disc

string quartet in one movement
mouth-piece: sextet for solo trumpet
antiphony iii (pearl-white moments)
the flow of (u)
antiphony iv (poised)

new world press release...

five works for voices, instruments, and electronics

thomas howell, piccolo; james fulkerson, bass trombone; thomas fredrickson, double bass; barbara dalheim, voice; kenneth gaburo, conductor; walden string quartet; jack logan, trumpet; new music choral ensemble; linda vickerman, elinor barron, philip larson, vocals

kenneth gaburo (1926–1993) composed works for instruments, voices, electronics, multi-media, theater, and a variety of other resources. foremost among his many interests was a concern with the voice and with language—how we shape language and how we are shaped by it—and with making works that existed somewhere between the boundaries of music and language. of the works on this cd, three are intensely concerned with what gaburo termed “compositional linguistics” (antiphony iii, antiphony iv, and mouth-piece), while concerns with balance and perceptual edges seem to be his foremost concern in the other two [string quartet in one movement and the flow of (u)]. in antiphony iv (1967), for three instruments and two-channel tape, the two channels are literally separate—vocal sounds (each phoneme, in order, of the source poem) on the left channel, and electronic sounds on the right channel, with the instruments in the middle. instrumental timbres relate to vocal phonemes; electronic splats are contrasted with delicate synthetic choirs assembled from recordings of individual phonemes; tremolos, flutters, and waverings alternate among recorded voice, electronics, and instrumental sounds. string quartet (1956) was written just after gaburo had returned from rome, where he studied with goffredo petrassi, and the quartet is dedicated to him. it’s a passionate, driving piece, where an intense concern for the quality of line is manifest in every gesture. in mouth-piece (1970) the trumpeter attempts to present six contrapuntal lines simultaneously and to maintain a sense of coherent timbral identity with each. unlike most trumpet music, where the phoneme “t” or “k” is used to articulate the trumpet, here the trumpet is used as a filter for every phoneme the voice is capable of generating. it is an amazing exposition of vocal sounds and trumpet virtuosity. for antiphony iii (1962), for sixteen voices and electronics, a poem by virginia hommel again provides the basis. here, however, it is articulated contrapuntally, one word at a time, by both the chorus and the tape. each word is clearly heard, sometimes spoken, sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted, sometimes electronically modified on the tape, in the order presented in the poem. the flow of (u) (1974) consists of one note sung by three singers for twenty-three minutes. here, focus is even more intense, and the attention to dynamic shaping given to the lines in the 1956 string quartet is here transferred to the micro-level, and worked on with the singers in an “oral tradition” manner.

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may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
october 19th, 2006

threads:
minimalism-drones
modern-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80578 cd

charlemagne palestine “schlingen-blängen” compact disc

schlingen-blängen (71:38)

one of the better contemporary charlemagne palestine outings: a single solo organ piece lasting precisely 71 minutes and 38 seconds. heart-stopping stuff... includes liner notes by ingram marshall.

new world press release...

charlemagne palestine, organ schlingen blängen is an invaluable addition to the slender but precious discography of charlemagne palestine, one of the legendary figures of the amazingly fertile new york and west coast experimental music/art scene of the sixties and seventies. he is considered to be a seminal figure of early minimalism—as important as his better-documented contemporaries. his performances on the giant bells at st. thomas church and his evening-length bösendorfer shows are still spoken of with awe by those who were present. palestine left the music scene in the mid-seventies to focus on his visual art; he eventually moved to europe where he still resides.

schlingen blängen —a 70-minute long perambulation through the organ’s sonic landscape—was recorded in 1988 (ten years after its initial performance) in a small dutch church near the north sea. it is difficult to describe because so little happens in it, yet at the same time an immensity of activity is going on and there is so much of it that it boggles the mind. we experience sounds set into motion by the initial choosing of a chord and its timbres (the setting of the registers or stops); the melodic changes that occur are subtle and few. in short, it is a relentless and uncompromising exploration of the physicality of sound as well as its spiritual dimensions. palestine's music left its mark on a number of slightly younger composer-performers, among them rhys chatham and glenn branca. absolutely essential for a comprehensive understanding of the roots of minimalism and its offshoots.

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 22nd, 2006

threads:
musique-concrète
minimalism-drones
sound-poetry
1970s-electronic
electro-acoustic-composition

new world (usa) #nw 80577 cd

ingram marshall “ikon and other early works” compact disc

cortez (8:29)
weather report (12:12) the emperor's birthday (13:36)
rop på fjellet (cries upon the mountains) (6:59)
sibelius in his radio corner (8:26)
ikon (9:06)

new world press release...

ikon and other early works

this cd comprises the text-sound works (1974-1980) on which ingram marshall concentrated throughout the seventies and falls into two parts: the works from the fragility cycles period (cries upon the mountains, sung, sibelius in his radio corner, and ikon) and the earlier works (cortez, weather report, and the emperor’s birthday).

“cortez, weather report, and the emperor’s birthday form a kind of trilogy representing my work with “text-sound” in the early seventies. the techniques used to generate musical fabrics and structures out of spoken text are similar in all three works, but the source materials are all quite different. i used tape loops to create repetitive patterns from words or phrases; musical structures were developed out of the resulting fabric. it is not the original utterance or sound bit that is the building block, but the whole cloth created from it.”

sung and ikon are both based on poems by swedish poet gunnar ekelöf. the first piece, referring to the sung dynasty, is scored initially as a solo/duo recitative by painter jan håfström and dancer margareta åsberg, after which the tape processes multiply their voices into a ghostly chorus as marshall’s spectral bass appears with the english translation, to be in turn transformed into its own small chorus.

ikon, marshall’s setting of ekelöf’s ayiasma, is a mystical meditation on an ancient ikon seen in a greek church. the air of apocalyptic finality in the text is enhanced by the electronics, with the pervasive soundscape being that of an entropic cosmic machine. marshall again intones the english translation; the incantatory recitation of the swedish original is by ekelöf himself.

“rop på fjellet (cries upon the mountains) again uses materials “collected” in scandinavia, most significantly an ancient recording of locklåtar and rop from swedish mountain herdinner (shepherdesses) traditionally used to call goats and cattle from great distances, although clearly also cultivated for their own intrinsic, shrill beauty. the live element is my own voice, a high keening processed through a tape delay system.”

sibelius in his radio corner was inspired by a photograph of the finnish composer during his “forty years of silence,” sitting in an armchair and listening to his own work being performed on the radio. “in his old age sibelius enjoyed pulling in distant broadcasts of his music off the short-wave. i imagined that with all the static and signal drift, some of these listening experiences might have been proleptically like a modern-day electronically processed kurzwellen piece.”

marshall’s brooding, mysterious sonic landscapes are essential listening for anyone interested in minimalism and the musique concrète tradition in electronic music.

$14.62

back in stock as of
may 15th, 2013

first in stock on
november 28th, 2007

threads:
modern-composition
free-improvisation

new world (usa) #nw 80572 cd

scott rosenberg “creative orchestra music, chicago 2001” compact disc

tehr (9:38) 2000
wash (9:02) 1995
7x with sttm (13:36) 1997/2001
forgetting song (13:32) 1997
toys (18:34) 1996

new world press release...

"the orchestra’s main power lies in its ability to consume and transport the listener. the sheer tonnage of vibrations generated by a large ensemble cannot be replicated or approximated by mere volume or electronic reproduction. the raw acoustic phenomena of twenty-or-more instruments working together in a single space to form a single sound entity is a radical and unmatchable kinetic force.

to then add improvisation to the orchestral palette, and the implications that are posed by spontaneous music generation, is to knowingly step completely outside of the institutional orchestral tradition. it is, however, to enter into another tradition established by such pioneers as earle brown, morton feldman, anthony braxton, leo smith, muhal richard abrams, karlheinz stockhausen, john cage, and so on." — scott rosenberg

scott rosenberg (b. 1972) is a multi-reed player and composer focused on creating a body of work that blends experimental composition with free improvisation.

creative orchestra music, chicago 2001 is the second recording of his dark-hued, richly layered orchestral works. rosenberg conducts a 26-piece ensemble, largely comprised of leading lights of chicago’s new-music scene, in six compositions — tehr, wash, 7x with sttm, forgetting song, and toys — that incorporate elements of improvisation, including conducted improvisations in some sections.

albums like braxton’s classic creative orchestra music 1976, the large-band work of abrams, and the improv-dominated transmissions of the globe unity orchestra can all register as antecedents to rosenberg’s music in disparate ways, each using composition and improvisation in different measures. william parker’s and barry guy’s orchestras suggest that the creative orchestra is still alive and well, but unlike those composers rosenberg is more willing to let go of the jazz vocabulary while retaining its improvisational energy and edge, giving his rigorous writing an often-changing complexion.

creative orchestra music, chicago 2001

lisa goethe-mcginn, flute
kyle bruckmann, oboe
matt bauder, jesse gilbert, paul hartsaw, laurie lee moses, todd munnik, aram shelton, reeds
todd margasak, nathaniel walcott, trumpets
jeb bishop, nick broste, trombones
megan tiedt, tuba
carol genetti, voice
nathaniel braddock, john shiurba, guitars
jen paulson, viola
chris hoffman, drew morgan, violoncellos
kyle hernandez, elizabeth kennedy, jason roebke, contrabasses
steve butters, jerome bryerton, tim daisy, percussion
jim baker, piano/synthesizer
scott rosenberg, conductor

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