Re: Apres Morty et Luigi, Bernie!

[Gregory Taylor <gtaylor@xxxxxxxx>]

I get requests for recommendations all the time (it happens when
you do a radio program), but usually wind up playing works by
a given composer which call within a certain time-scale. So my
recommendations will be bypassing the very thing that the estimable
Mr. G. really likes and respects.

For Morton Feldman, I'd suggest

"Rothko Chapel/Why Patterns?" [New Albion NA039CD]
"Coptic Light/Piano and Orchestra/Gello and Orchestra" [Argo 448 513-2]
Or the recent John Tilbury box of Feldman's piano music [it$ an import, $adly]

For BG listeners, the tricky part might well be the explicit "musicality"
of Feldman's work - the only way to hear the way he structures stuff is
to listen to Michael Tilson Thomas guiding the big ol' timbral engine we
call "the orchestra", composed of real instruments. Truth is, I've had
some ah....younger listeners who simply cannot get past hearing the
notes and get to hearing what he does with time and expectation. I trust
that this wouldn't be a problem here.

Luigi Nono was an amazing man, a prolific composer, and one of those
Modernist composers unafraid of pesky stuff like ideological slant or
content. But for me, the most amazing surprise about him was the very
slow and quiet work he started producing during the last decade of his
life... stuff that, for me, anyway, just thrums with tension and mystery
and almost a kind of dread - and all at very low volumes. The two discs
I return to again and again are:

"Variazioni canoniche/A Carlo Scarpa/No hay caminor, hay que caminar...." [Auvidis Astree E 8741]
"Luigi Nono 1 framente-stille an diotima/hay que caminar sonando" [Montaigne MO 789005]

I'm sure others will have their own recommendations. While the source of
the original post was about BG's interest in Feldman, I really place his work
and Nono's late output in this very singular kind of musical space - as singular
and rewarding in its own way as BG's own [his performance at the off-ICMC
was one of the high points of the festival for me].

For Mr. G. himself, I'm pretty boring: "Blue, Brown, Blue on Brown" or "Details
Aggrandis."

with regards,
gregory
--
_
knowledge is not enough/science is not enough/
love is dreaming/this equation/Gregory Taylor/
WORT-FM 89.9/Madison, WI/ http://www.rtqe.net/