how’s this for some great news:
in late January IRE and MGM reached an amicable accommodation that will allow the re-release of KOYAANISQATSI and POWAQQATSI on DVD to occur as early as the Fall of 2002.
via camworld
if first learned about this series through the philip glass cds. iv’e seen koyaanisqatsi on tv (arte), and i am looking forward to getting them on dvd (and to seeing the last movie of the trilogy).
you might want to visit the koyaanisqatsi site for more info
good and bad.
bad: i missed the first adams concert on klara
good: it’s not the one i was waiting for. that one’s on tonight. *smile*
here’s a list of what was broadcasted last night –only caught the beginning. there was some talk about a possible commission by the new york symphony (?), and also about the boston symphony choir’s refusal to perform the death of klinghoffer last year.
more important, here’s the info on today’s broadcast. it starts @ 19:30 cet, and if you can’t tune in to klara on your wireless, just go to the klara website, and click on the “live audio” link
enjoy!
one more advantage of using the ipod. tired of your current [song | album]? just jog the dial and look for another. doesn’t require you to get out of your [bed | comfy chair | lounge seat]. doesn’t require a nervously long time to choose the right cd from your extensive cd collection. (the right cd, because you want to make sure you don’t have to bother with it again in the next fifty minutes –give or take).
so i was ipodding away, and finally settled on motives for writing [amazon uk] by wim mertens. even though it wasn’t the first cd i ever bought, it’s the first one i remember so well. i must have played it a million times. if it had any (real) lyrics, i’d now know them all by heart (pretty much like i know all the beatles songs by heart).
i did own cds before that: i received a stack of classical music cds –all conducted by herbert von karajan– from a business relation of my parents. at that time i didn’t have a cd player though, but the gift apparently was incentive enough for my father to get me one during the summer holidays (having performed well at school and all that –ok, ok, so i was a bit spoiled).
i loved the way in which mertens managed to build up a whole climax (which he then overdid by spreading it over three discs with alle dinghe). i could almost see a plot unfolding, unavoidingly leading up to the last track (aptly named the whole).
a slight warning perhaps: it also has mertens singing. some people don’t like it when he sings, but it’s really good. (hint: try out jeremiades [amazon us | uk])
for me motives for writing was what spurred my interest in [contemporary] classical music. after that i was hooked. i bought the soundtrack to belly of an architect [amazon us | uk], which in its turn, got me interested in peter greenaway, which then led me to michael nyman, etc.
this just in. as listed in the newly arrived tv guide, BBC 2 is showing wonderland (directed by michael winterbottom), with a soundtrack by michael nyman. tune in, this saturday, 9 march @ 23.20 cet
description as per the bbc website:
Set in South London during Bonfire weekend, Wonderland follows three generations of one family as their separate paths cross each other. Starring Gina McKee. Strong language and sexual content.
recommended.
i could stop right here, even though i’ve only gotten two of their albums. i will be getting more, you can count on that. a while back i bought lost objects. it’s very much indebted to reich/adams/glass, but it’s very energetic and fresh; a valuable addition to your collection. (couldn’t find it on amazon though, but it’s somewhere on cdnow)
the other album i got is music for airports, and i got it just at the right time. this monday i got (very much) stuck in traffic (90 mins to travel 5 kms), and the music was just so soothing, that i couldn’t have cared less. errmmm… a bit overstated perhaps, but the music did help to ‘keep my cool’
go visit their site (incidentally, if you’re from the us, there’s a competition that might get you to london to attend one of their concerts).
(there is another disc in my collection, performed by the same ensemble: steve reich’s new york counterpoint / eight lines / four organs (released on nonesuch))
i’m just discovering the chester novello site. do check out their calendar. i don’t know how complete it is, but it’s one of the better i’ve been able to come up with. a word of warning though, be sure not only to look at the schedule for a given day, but als click on the month itself -there are quite a number of performances that are only mentioned on the general month list instead of on the day list.
e.g. when I click on february 4th, there’s no mention of michael nyman’s performance in melbourne, whereas when i view the month, it’s there in the list (not chronologically on the 4th, but in the date range feb 1st-6th).
another neat feature is that you can access the performance list per composer, e.g. here’s the one for michael nyman, philip glass, john tavener, and… let’s be trendy, say: magnus lindberg & esa-pekka salonen
you don’t suppose i could convince them to make rss feeds so i can use their news on december.org, do you?
last week i promised a review of the adams album i got. two words. get it.
it’s a very ecclectic disc, with already very ecclectic music. it ranges from the inspired, or as adams himself puts it – ‘maddeningly symmetrical’ – fearful symmetries (this work in itself is worth getting this disc for), to a more brute minimalsim of the chamber symphony and the gospel and rock-like music of the 4 songs from i was looking at the ceiling and then i saw the sky & christian zeal and activivity
if nothing else it’s a great introduction to the versatility of adams. worthwhile.
bad news is: i don’t know where you can buy it. i’ve bought it from the fnac (in gent), but i haven’t been able to find it @ amazon.
here’s all the info i have : fearful symmetries, chamber symphony, four songs from “ceiling/sky”, christian zeal and activity, performed by the orchestre philharmonique de montpellier (renàö√ bosc, conductor), released on actes sud OMA34102
the nyman performances in spain have been rescheduled to may 2002, as follows (these are all michael nyman band concerts):
21st: granada, spain
22nd: salamanca, spain
23rd: san sebastian, spain
24th: barcelona, spain
25th: barcelona, spain: tbc
+ the germans are the lucky ones: if you haven’t seen songs for tony performed by saxofourte, there’s no excuse now.
no.no.no.no.no. i’m sorry, this is the second negative review in a row, but i honestly cannot recommend any more tiersen. or rather i can, but i cannot recommend buying the albums. let me explain.
there are definitively some gems on the two cds that arrived yesterday from amazon.fr (le phare & l’absente). unfortunately they are burried under a lot of crap (pardon my french) and do not give sufficient reason for buying the full albums. most of the songs really sound like cheap pop songs (and probably are). i can understand that work very well in the context of a movie soundtrack, but they do not have much value on their own
i am sorry, because i really wanted this to work out, but i’m afraid amélie is tiersen’s best work (out of these three albums at least).
to end on a good note, if you’d like some good french soundtracks, i can wholeheartedly recommend gabriel yared’s 37° le matin (betty blue in english) and eric serra’s le grand bleu (the big blue in english)
maybe i was just over-eager. maybe i listened to the wrong album. after listening to amélie yesterday, i thought i’d be in the mood to listen to goran bregovic, so i brought ‘la reine margot’ ost with me, to listen to on the way back home. what a mistake. dave may dig disney, but i most certainly don’t dig bregovic -at least not ‘la reine margot’. when i switched to the radio, they were playing an excerpt from puccini’s madama butterfly (i think it was io seguo il mio destino). what a relief.
btw i so dig o mio babbino caro from gianni schicchi (also by puccini) ever since i heard it in room with a view. actually, forster’s novels (and then james’) is what steered me towards reading ‘adult’ literature
still, tessa used to be (?) a fan of bregovic, so we have a couple of his albums at home. i’ll try ‘underground’ and ‘le temps des gitans’ tomorrow, and let you know if these make me change my mind