Day 10: March 27 - Spirited (2 Meters) Away
Since we all have to keep our distance from each other, here are some pieces about space.
Dixie Chicks - Wide Open Spaces
Starting today off with a classic banger. What a catchy chorus too. Shouldn’t need any introduction if you knew a mother in the early aughts. A great tune about a young woman setting off on her own from her parents. Gonna have it stuck in my head for the rest of the day, for sure. Their new single is fire as well.
Pierre Boulez - Repons.: Section 1
Yesterday would have been Boulez’ 95th birthday. The French composer and conductor, who died in 2016, is one of the cornerstones for 20th century music. His legacy includes not just his compositional work, but also IRCAM and Ensemble IntercContemporain, among too many others. Repons (1981) is a seminal work of the 20th-century as well. It features a chamber ensemble in the middle of the hall, then six keyboard/percussion players around the hall . But wait! There’s more! Boulez and IRCAM developed a state of the art computer system to take the sound of the six spatialized players, distort them, and send them scattering through the hall. This section is the first appearance of the electronics. What you are hearing is the six musicians playing an arpeggio and the computer scattering it, with some ensemble interjections. Some lore: on the opening night, there was a thunderstorm in Paris. Right when the electronics come in, the power dramatically went out for thirty minutes. Boulez, known to be a hothead, played it remarkably cool. The power was restored and they restarted the piece. An amazing, transcendental piece, played here by Ensemble InterContemporain and Andrew Gerzo.
Rued Langgaard - Music of the Spheres: XIII. The Gospel of Flowers, XIV. The New Day, & XV. Antichrist
There is a famous story which says a lot about Danish composer Rued Langgaard. In 1968, Gryogi Ligeti was adjudicating a festival of new Danish works and Per Norgard snuck this 50 year old piece in. Ligeti, experimental phenom, remarked, “I didn’t know I was a Langgaard imitator.” Yet, Langgaard had died 18 years earlier unknown and penniless. He was an odd man, by all accounts. A child prodigy, heir to Nielsen, who drifted into a personal, excessive, style and out of favor with the musical world (also he decided his savior was the Antichrist…). Music of the Spheres is big. Scored for Orchestra, Chorus, Soprano, Organ, and Distant Orchestra, this is a big boi. Filled with apocalyptic and semi-religiously titled movements (most of his works were apocalyptic and semi-religious) Spheres is largely a series of beautiful textures for orchestra. The movements here close out the work: the distant orchestra accompanies the soprano (XIII - Gospel of Flowers), which is interrupted (XIV - The New Day) by brass chords from the stage orchestra which decay into bells + distant strings that are reuptaken by the stage orchestra and chorus (XV -Antichrist) in a properly Romantic bout of static, sonic excess. undergirded by some resonant timpani rolls which ends with harp, distant strings, and chorus and one last climactic breath. Pieces like this are hard to bear because, in addition to the excess, they are so sincere and vulnerably, maybe vainly, seeking solace as to be uncomfortable. like reading a personal friend’s therapy notes. Played here by the Danish National Symphony, Danish National Choir, and soprano Inger Dam-Jensen under the baton of Thomas Dausgaard.
Giovanni Gabrieli - In Ecclesiis a 14
Giovanni Gabrieli’s output represented the height of the Venetian Choral Tradition, which used antiphonal structures and polychoral ensembles (two choirs separated through the cathedral.). This work, his most famous, contains two all-male choirs and two brass trios, which trade off materials, and continuo (cello + organ). The text gives glory to God and implores him to deliver them (these are the solos between the bouts of ‘Alleluia”). Imagine sitting in a Venetian cathedral with choirs and brass in the lofts on either side of you and hearing this reverberate through the cathedral. A sound so splendid it would surely please God. Played here on natural instruments by His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts* with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge under Stephen Cleobury, an amazing communicator of works such as these who unfortunately passed away in November.
*For my non-classical readers, sagbutts (or sackbutts) and cornetts were early trombones and trumpets, respectively. They just sound a bit silly.
Bon Iver - Flume
Bon Iver (stage name for Justin Vernon) famously recorded the album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in his Dad’s hunting cabin in Wisconsin after his bands has disbanded and is life had fallen apart. As distant from anybody as possible, Justin (drank, hunted, and watched tv then) created this ethereal, intimate, and yet grand record with only his laptop and the instruments he had brought. This track speaks of personal and geographic space, and also the depths of digital recording. Also, can’t get enough of that ebow and slide buzz that permeates this track. A stellar, classic album.