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

computer-audiophile

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Yes and no.

First the no: John Cage Empty Words, Part III: Live Teatro Lyrico Di Milano, 2 Dec. 1977 2CD. It's a magnificent performance. Allmusic review. Youtube search. The 15 min RAI video is good for setting the scene. There's a 33 minute youtube excerpt from the 2DC. But the CD booklet has the whole story. It happens.
This is a fine example of audience turmoil. And this with John Cage, who is actually very established.
To the yes, see above, e.g. this. Elaborating on your remark would involve discussing criticism, politics, social and institutional behavior, and psychology.
Listening is always about psychology. It is a mental and neural process. With my love of Neue Musik, I don't feel externally determined. I came to it on my own when I began to take a closer interest in the fine structures of sounds or tones,
 

computer-audiophile

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Saw that and thought hard about it and discovered that I don't know any great recordings of classical music. I cannot name a single one. I could name some favorite performances of which I have or have heard recordings but that's a completely different thing. And I noticed that a recording of a great performance of great music needs to have really terrible technical qualities to spoil my pleasure in the music. And that makes me wonder what I'm doing hanging out with audiophiles.
Classical music is more my wife's theme. Today, she asked me to get a vinyl record of Korngold's 'Die tote Stadt'. We saw this opera at the theatre in Görlitz in 2015. It fitted wonderfully into the plush and baroque setting of that house. My favorite piece is Marietta's song. It always makes me sad and fills me with melancholy.


 
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computer-audiophile

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And I noticed that a recording of a great performance of great music needs to have really terrible technical qualities to spoil my pleasure in the music. And that makes me wonder what I'm doing hanging out with audiophiles.
Gourmet chefs are known to sometimes enjoy simple home cooking.
 

computer-audiophile

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Today I happened to spot another place where 'Neue Musik' concerts also take place. If I could be in Frankfurt on 1. March, I would go there. Among others, a young composer and university of music teacher I recently met in Dresden will be performing there. (See my own photo of Stefan Prins)

prins.jpg




Today he had sent me the link below.


This institute in Frankfurt where the concert takes place does research on empirical aesthetics. I would like to go into that in more depth. It's also about 'Neue Musik', my favorite subject.


Program:

 
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Multicore

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Thomas Ankersmit at the Goethe Institut yesterday. It was for the most part a purist job on the Serge synth, although Ankersmit remarked before he played that some sounds we would here were pre-recorded Serge synth sounds. Some welcome and surprising moments in the music included a synthetic thunder and rain storm, huge bass tones modulated in a swing rhythm, and some sweet pitch intervals that moved along almost to the point of melody. The virtuoso worked the synth's control console like a concert pianist and exhibited some of that passion one might expect from a recital soloist, although I believe the music's creation was much freer than that kind of thing. Nobody danced.

RX601393.jpg


More photos via this link https://photos.app.goo.gl/JdFjm7XNAqhRs89DA
 

computer-audiophile

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computer-audiophile

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@Multicore

I had a look at the website of the Goethe-Institut in Boston. It all looks very nice, the building, the street and of course the programme - quite wonderful! It's nice that there are institutions like this that connect people.


Thinking of US cultural institutes in Germany, the DAI in Heidelberg comes to mind, the city where I was born and lived and worked for years. It was called "Amerika Haus" for short.


I first really became aware of it when Christo wrapped it in 1969. I was 19 at the time and began to develop a strong interest in modern art. The "intermedia 69" festival attracted over 5,000 art lovers to the city from 16 to 18 May 1969. "Fluxus" was en vogue as a counter-movement to the establishment, in this case a sculpture exhibition planned by the Kunstverein Heidelberg and Klaus Staeck. It was an exhibition that totally shook me up. In my photo you can see Christo's work and my original catalogue of the 1969 art exhibition, which I kept. I later showed it to Klaus Staeck, the initiator at the time, at a meeting in 2009 and he signed the catalogue.

christo.jpg
 
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Multicore

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I first really became aware of it when Christo wrapped it in 1969. I was 19 at the time and began to develop a strong interest in modern art. The "intermedia 69" festival attracted over 5,000 art lovers to the city from 16 to 18 May 1969. "Fluxus" was en vogue as a counter-movement to the establishment, in this case a sculpture exhibition planned by the Kunstverein Heidelberg and Klaus Staeck. It was an exhibition that totally shook me up. In my photo you can see Christo's work and my original catalogue of the 1969 art exhibition, which I kept. I later showed it to Klaus Staeck, the initiator at the time, at a meeting in 2009 and he signed the catalogue.
What do we think of Fluxus and Christo looking back over 50+ years?

I like Ligeti's Poème Symphonique. It was published by Fluxus, if I got that right? Ligeti is one of the few composers of the cohort this thread discusses for whom I have no reservation or critique.


The story of this TV production is a mystery.
 

computer-audiophile

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What do we think of Fluxus and Christo looking back over 50+ years?

I like Ligeti's Poème Symphonique. It was published by Fluxus, if I got that right? Ligeti is one of the few composers of the cohort this thread discusses for whom I have no reservation or critique.
Great example, Tom! I like it! There are many composers who were influenced by Fluxus, I keep reading that. But the first that comes to mind is John Cage and some of his students. I also have to think of Yoko Ono.

By the way, we're going to Potsdam in the middle of March, there's the only (?) German Fluxus museum there, which we want to visit again, along with other art exhibitions and concerts.
 

computer-audiophile

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Sometimes I'm looking for something in the flat, and then I find something completely different and forget what I was looking for.
That's what happened to me today with this record. I bought it not too long ago, but I've never listened to it. But it is very interesting. It's one of those rare examples where I find an artful contemporary classic on vinyl. It's a pity, because I'd like to have records like that to listen to on my main system.

Ammann Giger
Works by Dieter Ammann and Jannik Giger. Mondrian Ensemble; Ensemble Nuance; Karolina Öhman, cello; Paolo Vignaroli, flute; Kirill Zvegintsov, piano; Nils Kohler, clarinet
Publisher/Label: A Tree in a Field Records, Tree 070


Also available on Deezer and Apple Music.



amman-giger.jpg
 

computer-audiophile

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Perhaps this platform from Switzerland is interesting for such users who are looking for completely new 'new music' and lesser-known composers. I have found a lot of exciting material to listen to there.


neo.mx3, a crossroad where swiss composers and performers meet organisers, researchers, festivals, music conservatoires, associations and radio stations.

You can create your own playlists and there is also a GUI in English.
 

computer-audiophile

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Even though nothing is coming from the colleagues here in the thread at the moment, I'm delving further. The biography of Wolfgang Rihm that I am currently reading contains names and places that I know well, but also new names, such as Humphrey Searle, who was once a guest lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. Apparently he is also one of the pioneers of serial music.

BTW: I lived in Karlsruhe for 14 years from the mid-nineties and had my internet and media company there. Karlsruhe, which used to have the reputation of being a sleepy civil service town for the legal profession, turned out to be a hub for modern art and media. Today, high-tech is added to the mix.

I link here to a work by Humphrey Searle. I like the piece a lot.

 

computer-audiophile

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My music tip of the day.

Wolfgang Rihm: Sub-Kontur (1974-75)​


His biographer, the music journalist Eleonore Büning, writes about Rihm: (Excerpt - automatic translation)

"One reason why he is less known in the US: Rihm was a green very early on. He doesn't have a driver's licence and he very rarely flies. The reception also has something to do with the composer's physical presence. That's the simple explanation." ¶

 

computer-audiophile

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My music tip of the day:

Ludmila Yurina: END-LESS... for symphony orchestra​

Besides composing, Ludmila Yurina also teaches regularly; Already since 1995 she has been a composition professor at the National Academy of Music of Ukraine in Kiev. In 1999 she was a visiting professor at the Rheinsberg Music Academy. Her works are performed internationally and have won awards. She is also a founding member of the Ukrainian group "Women in Music" and is involved in several other initiatives.

 

computer-audiophile

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I wonder how to keep the theme alive, starting from the initial question, and encourage others to participate. Surely it can't be that everyone only listens to mainstream pop?

I would like to see what you are dealing with in the field of "Neue Musik".
 
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Multicore

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I wonder how to keep the theme alive, starting from the initial question, and encourage others to participate. Surely it can't be that everyone only listens to mainstream pop?
There are other things in life besides mainstream pop and Neue Musik. I was indeed researching 80s pop music here because on Tuesday I interviewed a pop musician from the 80s, the drummer from Del Amitri through almost all of that decade. And yesterday I published a new podcast about Alles Wieder Offen by Einstürzende Neubauten, which I don't really think of as pop music. I've learned to play a modern composition, another of the Nuevos Estudios Sencillos for guitar by Leo Brouwer, didn't mention it since here since it's not very weird. It's part of learning traditional right-hand technique which I just started this year after 40+ years of playing with a plectrum. This kid is cute playing it...


And I've had a lot of work to do, having recently hired a new technical specialist to assist me with some things. And I've put more stuff on Ootoob. And I take part in other forums and threads here. And if I'm to limit myself here to saying positive things about my subjective experience then there's a lot less to say.
 

computer-audiophile

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Thanks for the feedback, Tom.

What is my situation right now?

I will be again on the road more often in the near future for excursions and not at home at the computer. Indeed, "Neue Musik" is less about easy listening - you have to want that. Certainly not everyone's cup of tea. Maybe I'm a bit stubborn about that, not only about this topic. I'm probably just always eager to learn. Maybe it helps not to become prematurely stupid in old age.

At the moment I'm still studying the biography of Wolfgang Rihm, and there I find a lot that I know to some extent because I own some material already and was also a little involved in the cultural scene in Karlsruhe. But I'm also discovering many new insights. Wolfgang Rihm is incredibly productive as a composer and also extremely gifted in language when it comes to describing his work and the music as such in general. Of course, I don't like all of his pieces, maybe even rather little of it, I'm sometimes more excited by sequences being a collector of beautiful tones and sounds.

The other day I bought a CD, it's actually too much trouble for me now to rip it and to add it to my digital music library. But I can't find everything on the streaming providers. It's about Eugen Werner Velte, who was a teacher of Rihm, and about Veltes students. During my time in Karlsruhe, we attended many concerts in the Velte-Hall at Gottesaue Castle.
Funnily enough, it turned out that one of his pupils, Ursula Euteneuer-Rohrer on the CD, was a classmate of my wife's at the High-School. I had also met Ursula once and knew she was a composer, but I hadn't paid any attention to it. BTW: I don't really like anything on the whole CD. I could have saved myself to buy it.

So the biography is a very interesting book, which I could really recommend. But it is only available in German.

velte-cd.jpg
 
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computer-audiophile

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Listening to live concerts with contemporary composition is simply the most fun. And the past few days I had some opportunity to attend several performances. The day before yesterday, e.g. besides Mozart and Beethoven in Potsdam (Germany), a piece by Jörg Widmann,

My photo:

con-brio.jpg


Here is a video of this modern piece to enjoy online:

 
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