Categorie: muziek

Recently I’ve received some comments about december.org. Doesn’t matter who sent it, I’ve received similar e-mails in the past, but I’d like to respond. The remarks goes along these lines:

“Interesting site — it doesn’t seem to represent as much “contemporary classical” as it does a sort of mainstream, easy-listening minimalism.”

And actually I agree. december.org is not an expert site. On it I want to share pointers to music I like, without you –or myself– needing a musical education to understand it. That doesn’t mean there’s no room for pointers towards more complex –not so much easy-listening– music, but december.org is more about music than it is about tones, more about emotion than reason.

It’s about 75 minutes to drive the 75 km to work (from Gent to Brussels). A lot of people tell me they’d be totally stressed out from traffic by the time they’d actually get to work, but I’ve discovered it’s the perfect time to finally listen to some music again. Last Saturday I discovered they stocked the autumn harvest for nonesuch at the fnac, so I was able to spend the week listening to these four discs:

Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet (amazon UK US)

Ingram Marshall’s Kingdom Come (amazon UK US)

John Adams’ El Niño (amazon UK US)

Terry Riley’s Requiem for Adam (by Kronos Quartet) (amazon UK US)

The above order is not at random, but mark my preference (and recommendation) top to bottom. (I will not give you an actual review of these discs, but a gut feeling about them.) I wasn’t too fond of Requiem for Adam, but liked El Niño more. Even so, I’d rather recommend another work of John Adams such as Century Rolls or I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky. El Niño doesn’t seem like Adams enough, but is too reminiscent of Nyman (the opening) and Glass (most of the singing). If you want a recommendation for Riley, try In C (especially if you like Reich) –I have the Ictus Live disc (featuring Blindman Quartet).

Ingram Marshall’s Kingdom Come was a revelation for me (no pun intended) -I’m definitely going to try other work by Marshall. His music is seems so quiet and fragile.

For a must buy, Triple Quartet is really amazing. Then again I’ve always had a soft spot for Reich’s phasing in and out…

Just bought Michael Nyman – Film Music 1980 – 2001 for 21.57 EUR; well worth the wait. Mind you, the lady in the store said there wasn’t anything new on it, which is untrue of course. If you ever buy a compilation CD, or need an introduction to the work of MN, this is the CD to buy!

But yes, it is true about the spelling mistakes: it’s MICHEAL Nyman (sic) all over the place. And even though I’m a big fan of Dave McKean, I think the artwork is particularly hideous. Luckily we buy the album for its musical qualities.

The local fnac store also sold the Philip Glass compilation (Philip On Film), and I’m cursing myself for not having bought it. It was ‘only’ about 45.00 EUR (on sale), for which amount you get no less than 5 CD’s (that sell at about 20.00 EUR a piece). Next week… if they still have them.

As of Monday, Film Music 1980-2001 will become available in the (European) stores. The US public will have to wait a bit longer, but you should be able to order it from amazon and cd-now anyhow. CD-Now list it as 29.99 USD (approx. 20.52 UKP or 33.17 EUR), while amazon UK list it for 13.99 UKP (approx 20.44 USD or 22.61 EUR).

Didn’t take me too long to make a choice -or I might hold off until they have it at the local fnac (21.19 EUR) ?

22 November 01 19.30 @ The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, London SE1 (near Waterloo station) Tickets ¬¨¬£8, Concessions ¬¨¬£5 This concert is part of BMIC’s Cutting Edge series. advance reservations e-mail info@bmic.co.uk

Programme includes –

Graham Fitkin’s IRONIC, TURNING, BEETHOVEN 7, WATCHING

Andrew Poppy’s 32 FRAMES, MOVIE MOMENTO

Gavin Bryars’ SUB ROSA

Saxophonist Simon Haram is performing a concert with the Duke Quartet and Friends at the Barbican Hall on Friday, 18 January 2002 at 10.30 pm, as part of a season of concerts of the music of John Adams. The concert will feature works by Adams and Glass, as well as Michael Nyman’s ‘The Piano Sings’. Box office +44 20 7638 8891. http://www.barbican.org.uk/

It seems likely that the concert will also be broadcast by BBC Radio 3.
(Kudos to Andrew F. Wilson)

New tracks, taken from the forthcoming album MICHAEL NYMAN – ‘FILM MUSIC 1980 – 2001’, have been added to the Michael Nyman website. The release date for the new album in the UK -and for most European places- is 29th October 2001 –USA/Canada Feb 2002 (TBC).

Tracks are:

Homage to Maurice

In 1984 Maurice Hatton invited me to write the music for ‘Nelly’s Version’. He had already added a temp track to the film – Bernard Herrmann’s score for ‘Psycho’ – which explains the character of this track. This new version is dedicated to the memory of Maurice.

Skirting

Orchestral music for the lead male character was used alongside Algerian dance music for his childhood memories.

Fly Drive

English 1920’s and 30’s country style without resorting to pastiche or known musical models.

Sarah Dies

Adding a few measures of sex and sensuality to Neil Jordan’s ‘The End of the Affair’.

yes! yes! yes! i’ve appreciated steve martland ever since i saw him perform as an opening act to michael nyman in london a few years ago. re-mix was one of the funniest ‘classical’ performances i’ve ever seen. his music is very eclectic and experimental (in a good sense !), strong, and also humorous at times

alas! it’s not that easy to come by an steve martland album: the bmg 2 disc set of babi yar and crossing the border seemed to be the only one currently available. but all that has changed with the blackbox release of ‘horses of instruction’, featuring fairly recent work from the nineties (with the exception of principia and re-mix). re-mix appears to be in a slightly up-beat tempo from what’s on the bmg discs, giving it just the energetic ‘schwung’ i remember it had when i saw steve martland conducting it in london

go get it @ the blackboxmusic site

i am really rediscovering my sources. only recently somebody asked me about a (very) hard to find greenaway catalogue. where else could i direct them than to “shipley – specialist art booksellers”. if you’ve never heard of shipley do go and visit their site -if you’re looking for a hard to find art(ist) book, don’t hesitate. ian shipley has helped me quite a bit in the past, when i was trying to find all those greenaway editions i thought were impossible to get by.

http://www.artbook.co.uk/

btw -if you’ve seen 84 charing cross road (with anne bancroft and anthony hopkins), you’d be delighted to learn that shipley is located just there (in the same street, albeit in nr 70), and that the (atmosphere in the) store is just similar to the one in the movie

just found a very interesting site: Kyle Gann’s Home Page. i got there via a search on ‘michael nyman’, which brought me to a column he (kyle gann) wrote about his getting on the internet, and on which the Michael Nyman website (back in its netpoint incarnation) is favourably mentioned. which of course made me look beyond that page.

gann is a composer, music critic, assistant professor and author of (a.o.) a book on American Music in the 20th Century (Schirmer Books, 1997). he seems like such a dynamic and entertaining writer -the book immediately went on my wish list

also, check out his on-line writings, e.g. A Forest from the Seeds of Minimalism An Essay on Postminimal and Totalist Music (4 jan 1999), Breaking the Chain Letter An Essay on Downtown Music (18 apr 1998)

recommended.