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

[Room314]

Yes, that's how I felt about it, whereas I like the "organized" phases better.

Meeting the Great God Pan certainly requires its share of chaos, one could even say there isn't enough of it, given the subject matter.

A fascinating performance. The first couple of minutes require some adjustment of mind and perception, but then it draws you in.

 

[computer-audiophile]

A fascinating performance. The first couple of minutes require some adjustment of mind and perception, but then it draws you in.

Yes, good description, as it often works with contemporary music, you need the right attitude to it. It doesn't work for me with this piece though. I happen not to like it - sorry!

 

[Multicore]

Hm, I clearly experience this in a somewhat different way: the sax player is (seems to be) very bound by the notes - interesting in itself as most sax players do improvise and are seemingly more relaxed (not sure if this is the best word ...). With that, I have some trouble see the sax player chasing maidens ... but I can see him with a goats head! (still bound ). Somehow I get the impression the sax player needs to break his bounds - but can't.

For me this is not chaos, as with "chaos" I mean something without order. But here is order, indeed complex, but order.
Interesting, provocative and all that - which is the role art must have, otherwise it is just plain beauty (and beauty is the neigbour to boring).

Thanks!

The sax part is fully notated. You can follow along in the score that I synced to the audio/video in that youtube. I think that's because it was written for a specific player, John Harle, who is not an improviser but rather a virtuoso performer.

The drum part is not fully notated and is written for jazz drummers who know how to keep time (sometimes a complex time) but choose other things themselves (what to hit, fills, etc). The score has a weird note for the drummer that I can't find just now that stipulates the impossible: that the playing be precise but you can do what you want (or something).

The intro to the piece Birtwistle wrote

I have called the work a dithyramb, in Classical Greece a choric song in honour of Dionysus, whose wild exuberance here runs riot. The soloist, as chorus leader, is identified with the mythic god Pan, literally "spreading ruin and scattering ban" as in the quotation from Elizabeth Barrett Browning with which I preface this score. The title Panic refers to the feelings of ecstasy and terror experienced by animals in the night at the sound of Pan's music. The chaos wreaked by Pan is exemplified by the conflict between the orchestra and the alto saxophone soloist together with the drum kit. At times the two odd-men-out rebel and branch out, adopting tempos independent of the orchestra.

So my interpretation the sax player as the goat god Pan may be wrong but I just finished reading Jajouja Rolling Stone which has several first-hand accounts of goat god Bou Jeloud (Pan) dancing in Morocco (and in once in London) in the 1970s. I can't help it.

 

[Multicore]

Yes, good description, as it often works with contemporary music, you need the right attitude to it. It doesn't work for me with this piece though. I happen not to like it - sorry!

Surely I have said here already that one of the most impressive and transformative experiences of my life was being at Earth Dances at the Proms in 1986. Panic is like a scaled down version of that with the soloists. Earth Dances is enormous and frightening. But getting frightened and confused can be good.

 

[Multicore]

That is awesome !! A friend of mine performed it with John Harle at The Proms a few years ago. I still remember the Points of View programme where the complaints poured in after it was broadcast.

John Harle talks with Birtwistle about that and other things here https://www.johnharle.com/blogs.htm?blogurl=weblogs-birtwistle-interview.htm

John Drumond's decision to put it in the Last Night of the Proms, in the second half, was obviously very provocative. He had been 40 years at the BBC as arts director and R3 commissioner and he was retiring that year and had chosen not to renew his contract in 92 and was being openly critical of the BBC. It think it was a great idea to shake up that hideous pantomime of colonial pomposity.

 

[Multicore]

Surely I have said here already that one of the most impressive and transformative experiences of my life was being at Earth Dances at the Proms in 1986. Panic is like a scaled down version of that with the soloists. Earth Dances is enormous and frightening. But getting frightened and confused can be good.

Look what I found...

That souvenir cost me 60p and the thing is 98% advertising.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Look what I found...

View attachment 293039View attachment 293038

That souvenir cost me 60p and the thing is 98% advertising.

I think it's great to have a rich treasure of memories in life. My wife has also created folders called "activities" where she collects such souvenirs.

 

[Multicore]

I think it's great to have a rich treasure of memories in life. My wife has also created folders called "activities" where she collects such souvenirs.

I completely agree. My wife actually calls the box I keep these things in as my treasure box. I don't mind the 60p very much now :>

 

[Multicore]

This series is very interesting. The classics of electro-acoustic recreated in modern digital and surround, very carefully it would appear. They are all in my streaming service but I expect that's mixed down to two channels. I know some of these works very well and look forward to listening.

Les Espaces Électroacoustiques, available via col legno - New colors of music

Milestones of electroacoustic music from Varèse to Ferneyhough investigated from a music-historical perspective and presented in contemporary 5.1 surround sound.

col-legno.com

Les Espaces Électroacoustiques II, available via col legno - New colors of music

Part II has finally arrived and we’re very happy and proud to be part of this very special project with ICST & ZHdK presenting more masterpieces of electroacoustic music.

www.col-legno.com

Les Éspaces Electroacoustiques III, available via col legno - New colors of music

The adventure is going on! Selected pieces of live electronic music practices since the emerging of digital technologies, from 1986 to 2007.

www.col-legno.com

I listened to a few minutes of Pressure-Divided on the 3rd release and it sounds great. The first one is all the greatest hits and will be quite a treat.

 

[Multicore]

Our podcast episode about the wonderful 1993 TV series On The Edge - Improvisation in Music is now available. The relevance to this thread, where people are especially interested in notated music, might not be obvious. But, two things: 1) Messaien, where we started this thread was an improviser, and 2) improvisation was only recently eliminated from of European concert music and it's unique in having done this. In the podcast Gav quotes Berlioz complaining about extemporizing musicians on his tour of Germany. He also quotes Boulez, the old control freak who hated improvisation.

Find Gas Giants in your podcasts app or Substack at the link below

On The Edge - Improvisation in Music

Listen now (77 mins) | In the continuing search for programs that would not get made today, we present Derek Bailey's series on Improvisation from 1992...

gasgiants.substack.com

 

[computer-audiophile]

This series is very interesting. The classics of electro-acoustic recreated in modern digital and surround, very carefully it would appear. They are all in my streaming service but I expect that's mixed down to two channels. I know some of these works very well and look forward to listening.

Les Espaces Électroacoustiques, available via col legno - New colors of music

Milestones of electroacoustic music from Varèse to Ferneyhough investigated from a music-historical perspective and presented in contemporary 5.1 surround sound.

col-legno.com

Les Espaces Électroacoustiques II, available via col legno - New colors of music

Part II has finally arrived and we’re very happy and proud to be part of this very special project with ICST & ZHdK presenting more masterpieces of electroacoustic music.

www.col-legno.com

Les Éspaces Electroacoustiques III, available via col legno - New colors of music

The adventure is going on! Selected pieces of live electronic music practices since the emerging of digital technologies, from 1986 to 2007.

www.col-legno.com

I listened to a few minutes of Pressure-Divided on the 3rd release and it sounds great. The first one is all the greatest hits and will be quite a treat.

Thanks for the tips. I will listen to it once in the near future. I don't have time today, am busy with housework.

Our podcast episode about the wonderful 1993 TV series On The Edge - Improvisation in Music is now available. The relevance to this thread, where people are especially interested in notated music, might not be obvious. But, two things: 1) Messaien, where we started this thread was an improviser, and 2) improvisation was only recently eliminated from of European concert music and it's unique in having done this. In the podcast Gav quotes Berlioz complaining about extemporizing musicians on his tour of Germany. He also quotes Boulez, the old control freak who hated improvisation.

Find Gas Giants in your podcasts app or Substack at the link below

On The Edge - Improvisation in Music

Listen now (77 mins) | In the continuing search for programs that would not get made today, we present Derek Bailey's series on Improvisation from 1992...

gasgiants.substack.com

When I read the duration of the podcast of 77 minutes, it puts me off. (I also have an aversion to audio books, don't know why, sorry).

 

[Multicore]

When I read the duration of the podcast of 77 minutes, it puts me off. (I also have an aversion to audio books, don't know why, sorry).

Then watch the TV programs we talk about, which is a much better use of your time anyway. Or watch the video of Messaien improvising.

 

[computer-audiophile]

I am currently relatively busy communicating with musicians and composers and artists whom I have only recently met in person and preparing private meetings with them. Although we have been living in the German cultural area East (former GDR) for almost 10 years now, there is still a lot to discover in the contemporary art scene there. Exciting thing! It has not been seen in West Germany for a long time. Not actively ignored, but there was no connection. At least not for my wife and me.

Next Sunday we are looking forward to a concert of chamber music with 4 cellos.

 

[computer-audiophile]

This series is very interesting. The classics of electro-acoustic recreated in modern digital and surround, very carefully it would appear. They are all in my streaming service but I expect that's mixed down to two channels. I know some of these works very well and look forward to listening.

Les Espaces Électroacoustiques, available via col legno - New colors of music

Milestones of electroacoustic music from Varèse to Ferneyhough investigated from a music-historical perspective and presented in contemporary 5.1 surround sound.

col-legno.com

Les Espaces Électroacoustiques II, available via col legno - New colors of music

Part II has finally arrived and we’re very happy and proud to be part of this very special project with ICST & ZHdK presenting more masterpieces of electroacoustic music.

www.col-legno.com

Les Éspaces Electroacoustiques III, available via col legno - New colors of music

The adventure is going on! Selected pieces of live electronic music practices since the emerging of digital technologies, from 1986 to 2007.

www.col-legno.com

I listened to a few minutes of Pressure-Divided on the 3rd release and it sounds great. The first one is all the greatest hits and will be quite a treat.

Deezer

www.deezer.com

Have times randomly listened to it with Deezer. Very nice sound quality, many classics that I know. Two-channel is not a disadvantage for me, I have no multi-channel playback system here.

 

[computer-audiophile]

... through these great albums on Deezer I became aware of the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Engineering in Switzerland: https://www.zhdk.ch/forschung/icst. I did not know this institution yet. But I have to be careful not to lose the thread and stay with what's hot with me in the near future. There is too much of everything.

 

[ferrellms]

Try Arvo Pärt or Gavin Bryars perhaps ...

John Adams?

 

[Tremolo]

Never

What do y'all think of Ernst Bacon? New to me. I'm listening to Bardley Colten's album of solo guitar now.

View attachment 292649

Never heard before but if I have to judge from his guitar music I think is not very interesting. It is true, like someone said in another thread, that the problem with the classical guitar is the lack of a vast repertoire but I can think of tons of better music written in the xx century

 

[Multicore]

Never heard before but if I have to judge from his guitar music I think is not very interesting. It is true, like someone said in another thread, that the problem with the classical guitar is the lack of a vast repertoire but I can think of tons of better music written in the xx century

Agreed, I thought Ernst Bacon was a snooze. And I think that was me about the guitar's problem with repertoire.

 

[Multicore]

John Adams?

Yes. Not always but often yes. When bluefuzz proposed Arvo Pärt or Gavin Bryars I was quite surprised. bluefuzz has usually exhibited very good taste in the past.

 

[computer-audiophile]

Never

Never heard before but if I have to judge from his guitar music I think is not very interesting. It is true, like someone said in another thread, that the problem with the classical guitar is the lack of a vast repertoire but I can think of tons of better music written in the xx century

Ernst Bacon: The Complete Works for Solo Guitar

Bardley Colten - album - 2014 - 19 Songs

www.deezer.com

This morning as quiet and harmless background music at breakfast it was quite ok.