by | August 12, 2014 · 11:00 am

Pat Metheny’s extended work

Metheny Way Up

In 2005 Pat Metheny was alarmed by shortening attention spans and bite-sized media blips.

“The new form now is ringtones!” he exclaimed in an interview. “It went from a symphony to an album, then to singles, then edit your single, then four-bar loops, and now it’s down to one or two seconds.

In response Metheny created The way up, a CD comprising a single work that lasts over an hour. The guitarist described it as “a protest in the purest sense of the word—it offers an alternative, not just a shrill polemic…[the album] “is a reaction to a world where things are getting shorter, dumber, less interesting, less detailed, more predictable.”

“If you look at the whole history of the group, we’ve been totally interested in expansion in terms of form… It seemed like now was the time to go all the way and attempt to use the CD itself as a platform.”

This according to “The advancing guitarist” by David L. Adler (JazzTimes XXXV/2 [March 2005] pp. 36–42).

Today is Metheny’s 60th birthday! Below, the group plays the opening of the work live in 2005.

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by | August 9, 2014 · 11:00 am

Levande Musikarv

Levande Musikarv

Levande Musikarv/Swedish Musical Heritage is an open-access Internet database of Swedish composers born at least 100 years ago, including biographies, work lists (with facsimiles of works no longer covered by copyright), bibliographies, and links to related material.

There is a hidden treasure trove of significant Swedish art music from the 1600s to the present; unfortunately, for various reasons many have been forgotten. Much of this music is only available in hard-to read-manuscripts, often in poor condition, with decaying paper, fading ink, and so on.

One of the other goals of the project is to produce critical editions of Swedish art music, helping it to become a vital part of our modern concert repertoire. There are great discoveries to make, not least among the works of women composers.

The database will eventually be bilingual in Swedish and English, in an effort to promote Swedish music abroad.

Below, the Drottningholms Barockensemble performs the sinfonia for flutes and strings in E minor, no. 22, by Johan Helmich Roman (1694–1758).

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by | August 7, 2014 · 1:00 am

Music in media

twilight zone 2

Pendragon Press launched the series Music in media in 2013 with A dimension of sound: Music in “The twilight zone” by Reba Wissner.

Wissner explores the Twilight zone series and offers multiple readings of the ways in which it used music, offering an understanding of the ways in which music—both original and stock—can be used in an anthology television show.

The book focuses both on the ways in which newly composed scores and stock music were used in the series and on how the music enhances and interacts with what we see and hear onscreen.

Below, an abridged version of The invaders (1961), one of Rod Serling’s favorite episodes; no words are spoken until the final scene.

Related articles

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by | August 4, 2014 · 1:00 am

Corn chip music

corn chip music

US patent 7942311, granted 17 May 2011 to George Eapen of Frisco, Texas, describes a  method for identifying sequenced flavor notes in a food product and developing a musical passage that represents or artistically relates to the tasting experience of the flavor notes. The passage is played and listened to concurrently with tasting the food product, thus producing a combined sensory experience.

The document includes data from a panel testing of a salsa verde flavored corn chip, which identified the flavor notes cilantro, tomatillo, lime, and an unspecified “spice flavor”. The inventor explains how these flavor notes can generate musical passages.

Eapen assigned rights to the patent to the corn chip giant Frito-Lay, presumably for its use in their marketing of corn chips.

This according to “Music to your tongue: In a bid for more emotional snacking, Frito-Lay patents culinary theme songs” by Marc Abrahams (BetaBoston 17 July 2014). Above, Eapen’s musical depiction of salsa verde flavor notes (click to enlarge); below, some of his related work for Frito-Lay, with cameos by The Black Eyed Peas.

More posts about synesthesia are here.

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by | August 2, 2014 · 1:00 am

A new Otakar Zich edition

Otakar Zich

The opera Vina (Guilt) by the Czech composer Otakar Zich (above, 1879–1934) was one of the most highly anticipated—and hotly debated—musical premieres at Prague’s National Theatre in 1922.

Composed between 1911 and 1915, Vina’s three-act score reflects many trends of its time, including a post-Wagnerian motivic web, lush Straussian orchestration, and quasi-tonal harmonic content derived mostly from a linear, contrapuntal texture.

Zich compiled the prose libretto from Jaroslav Hilbert’s 1896 play of the same name, an Ibsenesque parlor tragedy that retained its popularity for over a quarter-century. His compositional technique reaches its height during the heroine’s “letter without words”, a scene accompanied by a brilliant polytonal fugue for full orchestra.

Despite its many accomplishments, Zich’s Vina met with critical controversy after its premiere, provoking opposing forces to support or oppose musical modernism, which with this opera had firmly taken root in the Czech lands.

A new critical edition (Middleton: A-R Editions, 2014) increases Vina’s availability, enhancing the possibility of future performances of this historic work.

Below, Josef František Munclingr, Otakar Zich, Marie Veselá, Otakar Ostrčil, Emil Pollert, Marta Krásová, Jan Konstantin, and Miloslav Jeník preparing for the premiere of Vina.

Zich et al.

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by | July 31, 2014 · 1:00 am

Germany rocks opera

 

Increasingly, young opera singers from all over the world are moving to Germany, drawn by the prospect of steady work—even full-time employment.

In 2013 Germany saw 7230 opera performances, one-third of the world’s total. German opera houses employ 1270 soloists and 2870 chorus members on full-time contracts.

An American soprano who will be joining the Deutsche Oper in Berlin next year says “There aren’t as many opportunities as there used to be for up-and-coming singers in the U.S. If you’re a lesser-known name, American opera houses often don’t take a chance on you because they need to sell tickets. When I return to the U.S., people will say ‘She must be good, she’s sung at the Deutsche Oper.’”

This according to “If you want to sing opera, learn German” by Elisabeth Braw (Newsweek 17 July 2014; online only).

Below, a recent German opera production that provided numerous employment opportunities.

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by | July 26, 2014 · 1:00 am

Koussevitsky and American composers

 

Serge Koussevitsky was a tireless champion of contemporary American composers during his tenure at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Once he had decided on the value of a new work he was determined to program it, regardless of whether it was long, abstruse, dissonant, difficult to perform, or difficult to comprehend. Often he arranged for the major portion of the week’s rehearsal time to be devoted to perfecting the orchestra’s interpretation of the new work.

This according to “Serge Koussevitzky and the American composer” by Aaron Copland (The musical quarterly XXX/3 [July 1944] pp. 255–269); an appendix lists 123 American works that he programmed during his first 20 years in Boston.

Today is Koussevitsky’s 140th birthday! Below, his recording of Copland’s Appalachian spring.

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by | July 24, 2014 · 1:00 am

The esoteric phonograph

Edison phonograph

Emerging in the gaps between biology and physics, matter and unseen ether, electricity is a liminal force that inevitably carries a powerful imaginative charge both ethereal and anxious.

Many of the influential early figures in the science of electricity, such as Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, and Guglielmo Marconi, couched the new technology in mysticism and spiritualism, or even linked it to extraterrestrial life. Even the inventor of the phonograph himself was somewhat of a techno-spiritualist; Thomas Edison once attempted to build a radio device capable of capturing the voices of the dead.

Since then, musicians and composers both highbrow and popular have twiddled and tweaked electronic and electrical instruments, as well as electromagnetic recording and broadcasting technologies, to tune into new sonic, compositional, and expressive possibilities. In so doing, they have also gone a long way toward reimagining the scrambled boundaries of subjectivity as it makes its way through the invisible landscapes—both dreadful and sublime—that make up the acoustic space of electronic media.

This according to “Recording angels: The esoteric origins of the phonograph” by Erik Davis, an article included in Undercurrents: The hidden wiring of modern music (London: Continuum, 2002). Above, Edison with his phonograph, photographed by Matthew Brady in 1878; below, his 1910 film A trip to Mars.

Related article: Esoteric orchestration

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by | July 22, 2014 · 1:00 am

Di Meola and Vizzini

Vizzini

The music on Al Di Meola’s 1998 album The infinite desire was largely inspired by the work of the Venetian painter Andrea Vizzini.

“We had books of his collections laying around the studio,” Di Meola said in an interview, “and all of the musicians involved would periodically glance through them for inspiration. Even people who aren’t normally versed in art are moved by his work.”

“He’s about fifty and showed up at one of my shows last year when we played outside Venice. I was really moved that he was gassed by the music! He’s actually painting to my music right now, so we’re planning some exhibitions at some point down the road.”

This according to “Al Di Meola: Art imitating art” by Bret Primack (JazzTimes XXVIII/10 [December 1998] pp. 88–90, 201–202).

Today is Di Meola’s 60th birthday! Above, Vizzini’s cover for the album (click to enlarge); below, Di Meola’s Vizzini (a track from the album) with a slideshow of the artist’s work.

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by | July 19, 2014 · 1:00 am

A Springsteen archive

Springsteen report card

Founded in 2014, blindedbythelight.com is an online museum displaying more than 300 pieces of Bruce Springsteen memorabilia. Admission is $9.99, which allows a month of access to the site, the ability to download a font that replicates Mr. Springsteen’s handwriting style, the use of a ticket and memorabilia exchange, and entry to a monthly raffle. Mr. Springsteen has no formal involvement with the site.

Above, the museum’s reproduction of The Boss’s 8th-grade report card (click to enlarge; note that F stands for Fair). Below, Springsteen performs Blinded by the light.

Related article: A Springsteen resource

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