Thinking Plague

chalkpie · 06-05-2014

I don't think I am THE man! Pretty sure I'm not. har...

Well, you're not THE woman, so you're the man by default.

No sh_t! Have you heard V-W's Sinfonia Antartica (#7)? Really beautiful and eerie. If you know the story of Scott's expedition to the south pole, then it's particularly poignant. As for Britten, let re-iterate for all, "Sinfonia da Requiem"!!! And the Four Sea Interludes (esp. the Passacaglia!), Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto, Cello Symphony and Variations of a Theme of Frank Bridge!! All wonderful. I even like some Edward Elgar! Nimrod from Enigma Variations is beautiful, as is his Elegy. Ever heard Malcolm Arnold?

Oh yes sir. I own three complete RVW symphony cycles - Haitink, Boult II (EMI), and Handley. I also have a scattering of other recordings, like the RVW "Antartica" on Naxos which is STUNNING. The organ on that recording is unbelievable. I couldn't imagine hearing that recording on full range speakers, but even on my B&W' 602's is sounds incredible. One of the finest engineered classical symphonic recording I own, period. Must hear. Britten is much newer to me, and I am giddy with the thought of exploring his soundworld. Yes, love the Four Sea Interludes and the Frank Bridge piece is also wonderful. Arnold? I have heard snippets but don't any proper discs. Any recs?

I'd call him 'lyrical', and certainly 'romantic', or "neo"? His Fantasia on the theme of Tallis is his iconic opus, imho. The 2nd and 3rd movements from the London Symphony are pretty great.

Yes...I was actually referring to Britten, who seems to take the tonality further than RVW.

You know I haven't listened to Inscape or Connotations for years! Doing so now via YT. Inscape....great! I had a record of these as a teenager, and didn't 'get' them then, of course. As for his symphonies, love the Organ Symphony and the Short Symphony, my fave symph of his. As a teenager I was thoroughly infatuated with the 3rd, but grew tired of it over time. I still like certain passages a lot. My current favorite is Music for a Great City (based on a film score). Hmmm, Inscape is kicking my butt!

Short Symph is also my favorite of the three! I love the groove in 7 in the final movement - its so prog! Inscape is certainly fantastic and I have shocked folks playing this for them but not telling who it is until after its done.

Lotta good it'll do THERE!

I heard Billy the Kid as a small child and fell in love with it. I still pop it in occasionally. There is something so quintessential about it.... A great thing for "white-key" progheads to delve into, to see how a master dealt subtly but brilliantly with bi-tonality, odd and poly-meters, etc., while keeping it very accessible.

Right on. I pretty much love all Copland, from all periods. Billy the Kid is super. Music for the Theater is also an old favorite of mine, as is El Salon Mexico. Lenny destroyed that piece (in a good way!).

It embarrasses me to I confess that I've never been bitten by his stuff. I've heard lots, and know the 2nd symphony pretty well. I been dazzled by some of the quarter tone stuff.... But I've never had that 'emotional' bonding with his music. I'll keep trying.

Just say the word and I can throw a few Ives compilations together for you. Ives truly opened my ears in a way that I think no other music has - its hard to place into words quite honestly. Keep spinning the Concord, especially Hamelin if you can.

Let me RE-iterate: Schuman! And while we're at it, Lenny Bernstein's Symphonies, esp. Age of Anxiety, and his 'Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront" is excellent. As far as the best mostly-tonal, "neo-romantic" American? I say Sam Barber!

Love the Schumanator - not on your level but his picture is in my office at school! He is next to Stockhausen and Nono

I'm listening to that now..... pretty great! This will take many listens. Thanks, 'brah'.

Regarding a chamber or percussion ensemble, I might. The biggest problem for me would be to get it rehearsed and performed by... someone....besides students, say. Then how does one get it disseminated'... Soundcloud? I actually wrote a little 'ditty' for a sort of woodwind quintet back in 1990 when I took a Finale class. It's maybe 45 seconds long! But I like it.

I hear that. Easier to get things done in a studio in many ways right?

As for an all sequenced/sampled album, I have certainly thought about this, but I haven't wanted to spend the required time badly enough to take away from my TP writings....not yet. I don't think my current rig is up to snuff, sonically, and I'd need some learning curve time on some softwares. I use Finale, but am not very adept at sonic/synth or sampling software.

**NorthNY Mark** · 06-05-2014

Originally Posted by MJ-Plagued

Wow! Well, you've got a lot of wonderful catching up to do, then!

I do indeed. It's become easier now that I subscribe to a streaming service. It's an odd coincidence that I happen to have been listening rather intensively to Shostakovich when I came across this thread. By the way, I gave a listen to Schuman's 6th Symphony last night, and found it quite wonderful--I will definitely be exploring more.

Originally Posted by MJ-Plagued

Dissertation?! On what, pray tell?

Nothing musical, sorry to say--I'm an art historian. My dissertation involved a group of texts on aesthetics by Kant, Heidegger, and Derrida, which I related to some contemporary debates about the limits and possibilities of art history as a discipline (could be a great topic for an avant-prog concept album, eh?)

Originally Posted by MJ-Plagued

Might we surmise that this is not fully coincidental?

Well, it may be that there are no coincidences, but I actually believe I would have loved TP even if I had heard it initially as a teen--it is right up my alley, and the fact that it features vocals fairly prominently would have been even more of a plus for me back then. It's funny how much issues of simple access and exposure can determine the paths we take (or don't). Around the time of that Cuneiform sampler, I still relied on finding CDs in stores (and Boston was relatively close at the time, so such a thing wasn't inconceivable), and I don't think I ever came across TP, even among stores that had some Cuneiform albums.

Originally Posted by MJ-Plagued

Yay! Amazing to learn that all that blathering actually garnered a new 'convert(s)'!

It was some pretty amazing "blathering!" It's rare that the people whose music we listen to are willing to share so much about it with us. In fact, I'm wondering if that thread is archived, as I wouldn't mind revisiting it now that I've actually heard much of the music discussed.

Originally Posted by MJ-Plagued

I would not say that other composers are NOT bigger influences than DSCH (pardon the double negative). I've been listening hard to 20th century stuff for well over 40 years. Early on I love Le Sacre, which I still think is unmatched as a beacon for the century. And I love Copland's more dissonant stuff, the orchestral music of Britten (which is very bi- or poly-tonal), certain Bartok works, esp. Music for Strings, Perc., etc. I even got into Wourinen's electronic piece "Time's Encomium, as well as Crumb's Macrocosmos, Takemitsu and Mayuzumi (who's Mandala Symphony is a great fave)... But, yes, Schuman is probably my biggest fave, and the one composer I look to most for harmonic inspiration. Check out his 9th Symphony for "edgy". It's really far beyond that, but takes many listens to really 'hear'.

Believe it or not, I still haven't heard Copland's dissonant stuff, though I knew he made some (I was never especially taken with his more populist stuff). I will seek it out. I definitely enjoy all the other composers you mentioned, except for Mayuzumi, which is a new name for me. As I said, I just heard Schuman for the first time last night, and was impressed--I will look for his Ninth!

Originally Posted by MJ-Plagued

You might be surprised to know that I have tended, with a lot of TP music, to take a less "experimental" approach than I might have. As I've said before (somewhere), I like to straddle the edge between tonal and atonal, with fluctuations farther out or in. I've been trying to find a way to keep the music emotive and provocative without being either too saccharin or inscrutably abstract. Of course, there are various spots where the "huh?" factor is much higher......like in 'I Cannot Fly' starting at about 5:30, or at the opening of 'Blown Apart', as we discussed above - an intentional obfuscation of the actual meter...just to mess with people (I think it backfired in that folks never realized it is NOT a weird 'shuffle', but is, in stead, in 5/8 with syncopated accents). And the "Marching as to War" piano bits on AHoM are admittedly pretty odd. Then there's the 2nd section of Dead Silence starting at 2:13, also discussed above. The "instrumental break" in Maelstrom at 1:12. Pretty whacky, I suppose.

But all these are "places" along the path of each piece, to provide scope and contour, interest, etc. to the music. I like to incorporate head-scratching moments, that eventually sound "right". But, that said, what I strive for most is to impact the listener at an emotional level, but without insulting them with trite formulaic ideas....again, walking along the frontier between inside and outside. I could write whole CDs of all completely dissonant and fractured sounding music. Besides being very difficult for us to execute, I think it would not be as satisfying or memorable. I prefer to play around with that sort of thing, as the music leads me, within the larger musical context. Of course, that could change......

Thanks for the insight into your compositional goals! For what it's worth, I think you have succeeded brilliantly at achieving that exact balance of challenge and accessibility. Although I enjoy some music that occupies the extreme ends of those categories (say, Cecil Taylor and Crowded House), most of what I enjoy the most tends to balance on that precipice, to one degree or the other. I would be very disappointed indeed if you were to go in a completely dissonant/fractured direction, if for no other reason than such approaches can be found pretty easily in the realms of avant jazz or Darmstadt-school composition, but something like Thinking Plague is truly unique, IMO, even within the relatively small realm of avant-prog.

**MJ-Plagued** · 06-06-2014

Originally Posted by chalkpie

[COLOR="#0000CD"]Oh yes sir. I own three complete RVW symphony cycles - Haitink, Boult II (EMI), and Handley. I also have a scattering of other recordings, like the RVW "Antartica" on Naxos which is STUNNING. The organ on that recording is unbelievable.

I love that passage!

Originally Posted by chalkpie

I couldn't imagine hearing that recording on full range speakers, but even on my B&W' 602's is sounds incredible. One of the finest engineered classical symphonic recording I own, period. Must hear.

I will look for it.

Originally Posted by chalkpie

Short Symph is also my favorite of the three! I love the groove in 7 in the final movement - its so prog!

You mean the 'blam-_-ta-ta-ta-ta-_, blam-_-ta-ta-ta-ta-_'....? Yes, "bitchin'". Or do you mean the major scale thing that goes down from the 2nd, then back up to the 7th? Also great. My fave part, though, is the beginning of that, the 3rd, movement, esp. about 30 second in. All that great stuff in five!

Originally Posted by chalkpie

Just say the word and I can throw a few Ives compilations together for you. Ives truly opened my ears in a way that I think no other music has - its hard to place into words quite honestly. Keep spinning the Concord, especially Hamelin if you can.

Mighty generous. But no need for all that. You can just suggest me pieces an performances, maybe in order of 'importance'?, and I can sang them.

[QUOTE=chalkpie;262610] Love the Schumanator - not on your level but his picture is in my office at school! He is next to Stockhausen and Nono

Well.....an apple and 2 oranges! Schuman was never into the "Darmstadt school", nor "avant garde" per sé. He believed in human 'harmonization', not relying os 'systems', but he took this to where it often sounds 12 tone or serialism. But with enough hearings it reveal the Schumanesque logic.

Originally Posted by chalkpie

(I said): "Regarding a chamber or percussion ensemble, I might. The biggest problem for me would be to get it rehearsed and performed by... someone....besides students, say. Then how does one get it disseminated'... Soundcloud? I actually wrote a little 'ditty' for a sort of woodwind quintet back in 1990 when I took a Finale class. It's maybe 45 seconds long! But I like it."

I hear that. Easier to get things done in a studio in many ways right?

Exo-freakin-xactly. And much easier to write for a "band" of known, willing players.

**MJ-Plagued** · 06-06-2014