Saturday, May 28, 2016

Discovering November...

Playlist
Coldplay - Ghost Stories
Tiles - Pretending 2 Run
Fauré - Piano Quartets & Quintets
Various - Gatecrasher Anthems Paul Van Dyk
Van Nostrand - Voyage in a White Building I
John Cale - Slow Dazzle
Various - The Best Of Hallyday, Rivers, Mitchell, Anthony & Vartan
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Greatest Hits
Einaudi - Waves The Piano Collection
Black Widow - Black Widow III
Various - Know Your Enemy
Amsterdam Guitar Trio - Plays Music by Debussy, Fauré, Chopin
Rachmaninov - Symphonies ・ Orchestral Works ・ Concertos
Various - Anthologie De La Chanson Française
Bobby Womack - Everything's Gonna Be Alright - The American Singles 1967-76
Martin Tchiba - Linkages
Chicago - Live In Japan 1972
David Bowie - Acoustic Bowie (Earthling Promo Tour 96/97)
The Marvelettes - The Essential Collection
Moondog - Moondog 2
Barber - Solo Piano Music
Pärt - Piano Music
Ferguson - Piano Sonata in F minor
Various Composers - Deutsche Grammophon : Original Masters : The Singles
Igor Levitt - Bach, Beethoven, Rzewski
David Lloyd-Jones - English String Miniatures, Vol. 3
Nordic Union - Nordic Union
Thunder - All You Can Eat
Beethoven - Diabelli Variations
Alpha Rev - Greatest Thing I've Ever Learned
Beck, Bogert & Appice - Radioshow
Gubaidulina - String Quartets 1-3 & String Trio
Alpha Rev - New Morning
Lachenmann - Ausklang
Gabi Delgado - 2
Grateful Dead - American Beauty
Takashi Hirayasu & Bob Brozman - Jin Jin/Firefly
Tchaikovsky - The Sleeping Beauty
Rawsthorne - Cello Concerto, Oboe Concerto, Symphonic Studies
Lunatic Soul - Walking on a Flashlight Beam
Various - Dancing In The Streets - Motown's Greatest Hits
Various - Tamla Motown: Big Hits & Hard To Find Classics, Vol. 2
Muungano National Choir, Kenya - Missa Luba: An African Mass - 10 Kenyan Folk Melodies
Tippett - Stravinsky: Apollon musagete & Tippett: Concerto for Double String Orchestra
Everything Everything - Get To Heaven
Montrose - Jump On It
Beck, Bogert & Appice - Live
Haken - Affinity
Brahms - String Quintets
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells III
Derek And The Dominos - Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Schubert - Die Schöne Müllerin
Various Composers - Les incontournables du baroque
The Revivalists - Men Amongst Mountains
Krauze - Piano Works
Stockhausen - Kontakte
Feldman - For Samuel Beckett
Perahia / Rupu - Mozart; Schubert: Sonatas For 2 Pianos
Blind Faith - Blind Faith
Murray Perahia - Béla Bartók
Axel Rudi Pell - Game Of Sins
Matthew Friedberger - Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School
Pet Shop Boys - Super
Jason Moran - Modernistic
Dave Douglas - Convergence
Earth, Wind & Fire - The Box Set Series
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Soul Legends
Sardelli - Concerti, Psaumes, Musique De Chambre - Modo Antiquo
Françoise Hardy - The Real... Françoise Hardy
Bach, J S - English Suites #2, 4 & 5
Mendelssohn - Piano Concertos
Boxhead Ensemble - Dutch Harbor: Where The Sea Breaks Its Back OST
Gabi Delgado - 1
Chopin - 4 Ballades
Commodores - The Very Best Of The Commodores
Stockhausen - Telemusik / Mixtur
Circle - Paris Concert
Stockhausen - Oktophonie
Cloudland Blue Quartet - DDHR40
Johnson - November

The day commenced around 6:30 with work on my tax return and correspondence with our accommodation provider for a trip to Hamburg later this year...

This was followed by some locating and commencement of downloading of much music by Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, following conversations on Thursday evening with Sid Smith...

Although I had a goodly number of Stockhausen works in the collection, those being spoken of in particular were not there...

Over the course of the day, this situation was rectified, as the pieces witnessed by the Exec Producer, Dr Prog, Count Brodski, Jim Park, David Bann and your correspondent in April 2005, when this diary was but a month or so old, "Kontakte" and "Oktophonie", along with Sid's first two acquisitions back in the 70's, "Telemusik" and "Mixtur" joined the fray...

In addition to this, I partook of recordings by the jazz quartet Circle, their "Paris Concert" on ECM, which Sid had eulogised over, having purchased an immaculate copy of the 2LP set in Edinburgh during his trip...

In all then, around four and a half hours of new music...

I left the computer doing this as, around midday, Anne and I set out on a walk, starting in the sunny garden...







...and down the hill...


...over the main road and took the scenic route...







...where this inquisitive wee monkey was spotted...


...as was Anne's mum's house...


Our goal was the tram stop...



...said machine taking us to The Gyle...



...where some time was spent provision shopping re a tasty tea and on the purchase of birthday cards for brother in law Senior, Ross of Lynn and Ross and Lady Penelope, who turn 60, 50 and 40 this week respectively...

A number 12 back to the foot of the hill and a walk up, still under good skies...


The rest of the afternoon and early evening was taken up with the first three episodes of "The Night Manager", which was gripping - looking forward to the last three...

Between this and the enjoyable return of "The Musketeers", some music work...

Around an hour of guitarscaping in preparation for some new recording or gig or other which may or may not materialise...

I attemped updated versions of my 1977 compositions "Landscapes" and The Drone Effect"....


Late on, my final musical discovery of the day, by complete chance, was a five hour composition from 1959 by Dennis Johnson, a college mate of La Monte Young...

It seems Young's famous 1964 composition "The Well Tuned Piano" was much influenced by Johnson's "November" of which, until a few years ago, the only rendition existed on an old C120 cassette tape - two of the, proposed by the score, five hours...

The story of how the composition was restored and eventually recorded is over on Bandcamp, from where the recording can be purchased...



I managed to find a very reasonably priced new copy of the 4CD box set on Amazon (made even more reasonable by the recent acquisition of a voucher with regard to work carried out).  And so this is now winging its way to Crispycat Towers from Switzerland while I plug the wait with a download from the tube of you...

This recording sets the template for minimalism and ambient at least five years before the previously believed point of departure...

And, as a bonus, the music is actually excellent!

Ended the day with work in relation to transferring funds to Europe without having to pay extortionate bank charges...

All in all then, a busy Saturday...

Highlight of the Day : Discovering Dennis Johnson...

No comments: