Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

[Multicore]

What about Lachenmann?

Also good. I played quite a lot of Lachenmann on the radio.

I also agree that Stockhausen completely freaked out at the end of his time. Most recently when he called 9/11 the greatest work of art. I have no understanding whatsoever for this verbal aberration.

Given his thing for complicated theatrical productions that require meticulous long-term planning and execution, I can almost imagine what he might have been thinking. But that he said it out loud, even to an empty room, is perplexing. And to anyone that might report it to the public, ...

 

[computer-audiophile]

Also good. I played quite a lot of Lachenmann on the radio.

Well, then I can write a little about Lachenmann and give an example. He likes to use extended playing techniques of classical instruments, here the cello.
The first time I consciously heard this sounds, which must have been in the seventies, it electrified me. Today it is perhaps overused again, we hear it too often in concerts of modern ensembles and then it seems banal.

 

[Axo1989]

I also agree that Stockhausen completely freaked out at the end of his time. Most recently when he called 9/11 the greatest work of art. I have no understanding whatsoever for this verbal aberration.

As often the case with such things, his utterance there makes more sense in full and context.

 

[JaMaSt]

For those who have been following this post and wondering why some members of this forum have been "defending" the introduction of atonality, polytonality and dissonance into Western Classical music - listen to this short song by Berio.

It could not have been written had Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and others not sought to stop "looking through the keyhole" at music and dared to open the door.

 

[computer-audiophile]

For those who have been following this post and wondering why some members of this forum have been "defending" the introduction of atonality, polytonality and dissonance into Western Classical music - listen to this short song by Berio.

It could not have been written had Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and others not sought to stop "looking through the keyhole" at music and dared to open the door.

Interesting example, thank you!

Luciano Berio's name rings a bell. I would have to look again at what he has done. There are so many. While 'Neue Musik' appeals to relatively few listeners, it's still not a small world once you get into it.

The brief annoyance that arose here in this thread has now inspired me even more to look further into Stockhausen. Have not gone very far there yet.

I found older notes of mine about great live performances of his work I had attended in the past. And I found in my record collection perhaps a dozen records with Stockhausen material that I have never played.

 

[Multicore]

The first time I consciously heard this sounds, which must have been in the seventies, it electrified me. Today it is perhaps overused again, we hear it too often in concerts of modern ensembles and then it seems banal.

This is a curious thing. I don't think you can overuse any technique in music. If we can't get bored with traditional technique then how do we get bored with extended? Doesn't make sense to me. Personally I do not get bored of listening to good improvisers using extended technique. Therefore the problem must be somewhere else in the music.

I think this has a lot to do with notation as the interface separating intellectual/artistic composition from skilled/technological performance.

There are plenty of examples of composers who have attempted to incorporate the creative musical potential of the performers but now this has the problem that the music schools traditionally select and train players to be uncreative. Then composers get themselves in trouble if they write stuff performers are unprepared for. So then the composers ends up writing performer-specific works or writing works so that they are only likely to attract only the adventurous creative musicians.

Meanwhile outside the genteel well-funded establishments of fine-art music, improvisation is perfectly normal and a part of all musical practice. Indeed it's a skill the working musician can't easily afford to lack. Out there the commoners are jammin.

So it seems there are pros and cons to this system decomposition: composer - score - performer(s). It's great for symphony orchestras if you want that symphony-orchestra sound and its hard to get that without a score. Otoh, notation and indeed the separation of compoer from performer is, when you compare it to the world of music that doesn't use it, limiting in the extreme.

 

[Multicore]

For those who have been following this post and wondering why some members of this forum have been "defending" the introduction of atonality, polytonality and dissonance into Western Classical music - listen to this short song by Berio.

Black is the color of my true love's hair. Number 1 in Berio's Folksongs. I adore it. It's a traditional folk song from Scotland that moved to USA that Berio arranged. Berio composed the beautiful viola part. I love it so much I arranged my version of it for guitar and I use it in my improvisations. (I don't have a recording. Some improvisers have difficulties with recording.) I think there's a youtube of Berberian singing Folksongs.

That particular song isn't very atonal. It's D natural minor with a couple of occasional color notes. Less deviant from a simple fixed harmony than stuff peaople hear all the time. Music without any such deviations often sound insipid even to the most casual music listeners.

All the same Folksongs is a superb introdction to Berio and the confusing world of composers he is often associated with.

 

[Multicore]

Interesting example, thank you!

Luciano Berio's name rings a bell. I would have to look again at what he has done. There are so many. While 'Neue Musik' appeals to relatively few listeners, it's still not a small world once you get into it.

The brief annoyance that arose here in this thread has now inspired me even more to look further into Stockhausen. Have not gone very far there yet.

I found older notes of mine about great live performances of his work I had attended in the past. And I found in my record collection perhaps a dozen records with Stockhausen material that I have never played.

View attachment 261487

I love you photos so don't stop sending them but I bet I'm not the only one who feels disturbed by this arrangement of paper, PVC and electric heaters.

Maybe we can talk about what Aus den sieben Tagen represents another day. I have to feed and walk the dogs and get some work work done.

 

[computer-audiophile]

I should probably explain about the extended playing techniques. Of course, I like them. By the way they are very demanding on an audio system If i cannot hear them live. Vinyl records usually fail here. You can't hear the proverbial pin drop with a record. The noise floor is too high. That's why I have my near field studio monitors and DACs for that. (Neumann, or JBL ...)

I was more concerned about the carelessness of young up-and-coming composers. Sometimes, as with pop music, we get the impression that we hear the same thing over and over again.

Fortunately, also here in the East we have the opportunity to discover many new composers and new pieces every year. Maybe I'll write something about that. It is mostly in Dresden, Berlin is also not so far.

That was the case in Karlsruhe anyway, because the ZKM was just around the corner. https://zkm.de/en

 

[computer-audiophile]

I love you photos so don't stop sending them but I bet I'm not the only one who feels disturbed by this arrangement of paper, PVC and electric heaters.

Where do you see PVC? You mean our oak floor?

Sorry,

I don't like everything I see here either. Many of the pictures posted are mostly stolen from the internet and have no individual touch. For example: What I like least are the animated gifs that are sent instead of literal comments. They mostly come from the lowlands of trash culture. That's my take on it.

Photographically staging an album cover beautifully is not easy. It also has another aspect: if I photograph it alone, it can be a copyright infringement. If I make a own composition, it is not. So it's not a lack of thought.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Maybe we can talk about what Aus den sieben Tagen represents another day. I

If you have something to say about it, that would be nice! I haven't dealt with this piece specifically myself yet. I hope it won't be another scathing critique.

 

[Multicore]

Where do you see PVC? You mean our oak floor?

That's why LP records are made of. Maybe the LP is on the TT some distance away but iirc that's a multi-LP set.

 

[Multicore]

What I like least are the animated gifs that are sent instead of literal comments. They mostly come from the lowlands of trash culture.

Does this mean you don't like visiting the Lowlands of Trash Culture? I love it there. Sturgeon's Law applies there too, of course. But rummaging around in junk shops and yard sales is typically more fun than browsing classy antique stores. Michael Thompson wrote an influential book Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. TV shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are arguably better drama than movies that get most attention at Cannes.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Does this mean you don't like visiting the Lowlands of Trash Culture?

We all live in different worlds of values. The lifestyle is usually not transparent in forums. It also makes it difficult to build trust and be nice to one another.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Continuation from #566

I found the complete piece with 7 hours length on YouTube. I have already started listening and will go through it with breaks. For convenience, I had ChatGBT write me a short summary:

"Sieben Tage" (Seven Days) is a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen created in 1968 for solo performer and electronic music. The work consists of seven individual pieces, each lasting approximately one hour, that are intended to be performed over the course of seven consecutive days. The pieces are meant to reflect the performer's physical and spiritual journey through a week of intense spiritual reflection and meditation. Each piece is structured around a central idea or theme and is meant to be performed in a specific location, with the performer's movements, gestures, and sounds interacting with the environment in a highly improvisational manner. "Sieben Tage" is considered a seminal work in the field of experimental music and continues to be influential today.

 

[Axo1989]

Where do you see PVC? You mean our oak floor?

I think it was the records on the valve amps. Yes, since explained. I keep forgetting to say that while I've never had (or even listened to) a valve amplifier I like the straightforward aesthetic of the grey ones that appear in your photos (even in some of the performance photos so you must move them around?)

I don't like everything I see here either. Many of the pictures posted are mostly stolen from the internet and have no individual touch. For example: What I like least are the animated gifs that are sent instead of literal comments. They mostly come from the lowlands of trash culture. That's my take on it.

Haha, I have a pet hate for what we now call memes (in the vernacular) in other words those photos with superimposed (usually white, black-outlined) text that can be generated online. I mean I really hate them (aesthetically, and culturally in terms of their communication function). The animated gifs too. On ASR I pretty quickly block posters that over-use them (sometimes I can look at a page in the 'humour' thread and see no posts at all). You could call it my over-active immune system at work.

Memetics was and is pretty interesting to me however. Dawkins' formulation—and subsequent elaboration by others—of meme as transmissible/viral cultural unit (by analogy for gene) was inspired. The original Greek word means 'imitated thing' of course, but I once mis-read that as 'irritating thing' and that stuck with me.

Edit: But expressing distaste for the popular meme format, note that I've been somewhat privileged and not (at least, not always) one of "a generation defeated by the class struggle who are surviving on memes and desperate irony". That text from an article on Italian communist rap group P38-La Gang [if anyone's curious, looks like they are simply styled as P-38 in Apple Music]. So much could be said about reactions to rap/hip-hop in terms of crypto-racism, -fascism and the like, but not here.

Photographically staging an album cover beautifully is not easy. It also has another aspect: if I photograph it alone, it can be a copyright infringement. If I make a own composition, it is not. So it's not a lack of thought.

Oh interesting. And logical. I also don't have a turntable or any vinyl but may remedy that one day.

One of the things that came up for me reading this thread is the relative paucity of Stockhausen's material in circulation via the streaming services (and not only him). There is a fair bit of avant-garde material fortunately but not at all comprehensive. I found a similar thing when Jean-Luc Godard died recently. I went to find a number of his films that I remembered seeing, but only a couple came up, I would have to dig deeper into some specialised niches. Probably the same for this music.

 

[computer-audiophile]

@Axo1989

Hi Axo, thanks for your interest,

I have always liked to build things according to my own ideas, both in terms of design and technique. I try to bring out and emphasise certain qualities. This also applies to loudspeakers. I have often demonstrated such installations, in the circle of audio friends or at international meetings of the scene. Sometimes they have even been the subject of a shoot-out.

These grey amps seen here are the last ones I built in the Corona pandemic, more or less as way of passing the time. One with 300B power tubes and the other one with 211 triodes. They are supposed to look like the old Western Electric amps in a rough industrial look. But my circuit is new and different, very minimalist. Together with the phono stage, there are only 4 real triodes per channel in the signal path from pickup to speaker. Of course I've got lots of photos of other DIY amps like this, but that's off topic here in the music section.

 

[computer-audiophile]

I would have to dig deeper into some specialised niches. Probably the same for this music.

Yes, this is true. There are still many recordings, that cannot be found on streaming services. So it makes sense to keep a own library for that.

 

[Axo1989]

These grey amps seen here are the last ones I built in the Corona pandemic, more or less as way of passing the time. One with 300B power tubes and the other one with 211 triodes. They are supposed to look like the old Western Electric amps in a rough industrial look. But my circuit is new and different, very minimalist. Together with the phono stage, there are only 4 real triodes per channel in the signal path from pickup to speaker. ...

Well outside my skill-set, but impressive also that the aesthetic is your deliberate creation. Thanks for elaborating.

 

[Multicore]

One of the things that came up for me reading this thread is the relative paucity of Stockhausen's material in circulation via the streaming services (and not only him). There is a fair bit of avant-garde material fortunately but not at all comprehensive.

There's actually lots but only of the works that have moved into the repertoire. KS bought the rights for the recordings he made with DG and issued them on CD at very high prices with new art and information inserts. These are for many of the compositions more or less the definitive recordings. They are not in the streaming services, afaik.

It may vary by streaming service. I tried Apple, Spotify, Tidal, Qboz, Deezer, Google and finally settled on Amazon because it has the best selection. Their app software is terrible but for my purposes by far the better catalog.

I found a similar thing when Jean-Luc Godard died recently. I went to find a number of his films that I remembered seeing, but only a couple came up, I would have to dig deeper into some specialised niches. Probably the same for this music.

It's a bit different with films because in some cases an official digital transfer may not be available. Anyway, when Godard died we thought about doing one of his on the podcast. We tried to watch Alphaville but couldn't make sense of it. Film-noir spy thriller with lots of smoking and sexy french girls. Possibly more smoking than the other things. I couldn't discern the plot. Godard was always a mystery to me. I trust the film buffs know what they are talking about and they rate his work highly so I accept this is my fault.