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Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 16:06:05 +0000 (GMT)
From: alastair@pretentious.co.uk
Subject: Zorn Gift Live In London
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I was at this too, and I have to say I agreed mostly with the Guardian's point of view. I (more or less) stopped going to rock concerts because if I wanted to hear the CD, I could listen at home (in a chair) and the sound would probably be better. OK, the sound and chair arguments don't apply with the Barbican (or "Barbi-kharn", as JZ called it) but you know where I'm coming from...
It surprises me that people came to the gig expecting Zorn to play sax (as has been reported earlier). Have they not heard the CD? The fact that Zorn felt compelled to say that he didn't usually like playing this kind of music live spoke volumes - considering how many different projects he has on the go could he not have suggested that, much as those at the Barbican like "The Gift" that something else would be preferable? Reminds me of Spinal Tap's decision to play "Jazz Odyssey" in front of a festival audience ;>)
I also thought it was a great shame that Dave Douglas came all the way over merely to play on one track, although the encore more than made up for it. Someone mentioned electric Miles; Ribot was very McLaughlin circa "Jack Johnson", Jamie Saft finally got to let loose in a Chick Corea style and the percussionists gave it that "Dark Magus" feel.
Hey Dave, you were at this too. Now you've had time to ponder, anything to add?
Alastair Wilson
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Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 11:23:48 -0500
From: "Steve Smith" <ssmith36@sprynet.com>
Subject: RE: Morton Feldman & Edgar Varese
Boulez has recorded complete Varese programs twice: a few decades back for
Columbia (now Sony Classical), and again for a Grammy-winning Deutsche
Grammophon disc last year. The older recording derserves its classic status;
the DGG recording, in my opinion, is a tired, turgid bore, though clearly
I'm in the minority there.
If you want to get everything in one pop, the two-disc set by Ricardo
Chailly, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Asko Ensemble on
London/Decca is hard to beat - exceptional performances of Varese's oeuvre
in sumptuous sound, and Chailly includes the electronic passages of Deserts
where Boulez did not. Amazingly, however, there's a really cheap alternative
if you just want to stick your toe in the water - Naxos (them again!)
released a single disc of Arcana, Deserts (with the electronics),
Integrales, Offrandes and Octandre around the same time that Boulez II
arrived. With this disc, you get five major scores in fine performances by
the Polish National Radio Symphony and sound for the admission price of
about $1.25 per work. Hard to beat.
(Speaking of that Polish orchestra and Naxos, their Lutoslawski and
Penderecki series are both invaluable, and their recent Messiaen
Turangalila-Symphony is hard to beat at twice the price.)
My only problem with the Naxos is that you don't get the absolutely seminal
Ionisation, still probably the finest percussion ensemble piece to date. But
if you're lucky, you can still find find a Nonesuch disc by the New Jersey
Percussion Ensemble that combined an LP of short works (Ionisation and works
by Cowell, Colgrass and Saperstein) with an LP of Charles Wuorinen's
decidedly un-shitty Percussion Symphony, a work which intersperses atonal,
abstract movements with a transcription of a Dufay vocal work. Just
marvelous, and the recordings (from '74 and '78) hold up well.
For Feldman, I'd start with Piano and String Quartet, either on hat[NOW]art
or Nonesuch, and move on from there. The hat recording of the monumental
String Quartet II is, well, monumental, but it may be a bit too much for
starters...
Steve Smith
ssmith36@sprynet.com
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Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 08:42:54 -0800
From: "gorilla thing" <gorillathing@hotmail.com>
Subject: why is music needed?
>And third: for people to live in society they need to be able to
pick up on
all sortsa details about consensus and context and all that, and
for those
who are kinda slow music gives a set of cues. It tells you how
to feel when
an army marches by, or when a CG dinosaur eats a mild mannered
scientist or
whatever.>
van
interested point, is it possible that music can be use to control?
