Modern Classical Music

György Ligeti, Antoinette Vischer

Continuum is a work composed by György Ligeti in 1968. The work was written for harpsichord solo and dedicated to the harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer. A version from 1970, transcribed for barrel organ by Pierre Charial, was the version to enter the top 100 list this year but an older version (1968) recorded by Vischer herself later on scored the majority of points. From what I understand (from comments on YouTube) is that the piece is incredibly difficult to play. In the early 1960s Vischer had commissioned John Cage to compose a work for harpsichord but Cage was hesitant until, in 1967, he saw an opportunity for the harpsichord while on a Visiting Associate-ship at the University of Illinois' Computer Music program led by Lejaren Hiller. The two created a complex composition for seven harpsichords and 52 magnetic tape players called HPSCHD. The premiere at the University of Illinois in 1969 featured Vischer, David Tudor, and Philip Corner, among the seven harpsichordists. The composition is a work to experience, not suited for recording, even though a recording of it made it onto a disc produced by Nonesuch in 1969. I bought that LP this year but the track did not make it onto the 2022 top-100 list. Another work by John Cage did, also from an LP I bought this year, MagnifiCathy: The Many Voices of Cathy Berberian. [1971, Wergo] A Flower and The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs are two compositions by John Cage for voice and closed piano. Bruno Canino plays (taps onto) the closed piano behind Berberian's voice.

John Cage, Cathy Berberian

The great influx of modern classical music was not perpetuated by those two records that I just discussed but rather by a big Iannis Xenakis haul at a local thrift store. One afternoon in the Spring I found no less than five discs by Iannis Xenakis. I bought all five, and all five are really great. One of the five, also a Nonesuch LP (1968), is shared with a contemporary of Xenakis, the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. His Cappriccio for Violin and Orchestra on side B of the shared record comes into the Top 100 2022 as well as Xenakis' Akrata found on side A. Both works, the whole LP, was performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Led by Lukas Foss, the famous German-American pianist, composer, and conductor.

Lukas Foss, Krzysztof Penderecki

Iannis Xenakis is represented five times in the list, and is the highest ranking individual this year. Two further (after Akrata) recordings come from an LP on the Candide label, and were recorded by the Ars Nova Ensemble led by Marius Constant, who also founded the ensemble specializing in contemporary music and especially that of Xenakis. The LP is simply called Iannis Xenakis, the recordings are from 1967, and the top 100 titles are Syrmos for 18 strings and Polytope for 4 Orchestras scattered throughout the Audience. A different Polytope and Polla ta Dhina for Children's Chorus and Orchestra (from Album 2—Music Today series, EMI) are the other Xenakis recordings in the list.

Marius Constant, Iannis Xenakis

 

Beautiful People

Miniatures (Top 100 2022)

Allen Ravenstine, Pere Ubu

David Thomas, Pere Ubu

After a little break for a while I'm ready to start the next series of 100, the Top 100 2022. While it was clear for a while already I would stay close to the double portrait concept used in 2021, I am going to make some changes in the process. Looking back on the Top 100 2021, I found that the juxtaposition, or contrast of object and subject was hardly ever as black and white as I had imagined. In stead of focusing on the differences between the people portrayed, I'm now treating them as equal. There's always a relationship between two people (or more) involved in the making of a recording and this relationship is usually much more egalitarian, at least today, as the colonialist attitude of the earlier 20th century I took as a vanishing point last year. Even within early ethnomusicological recordings I found that the relationship between object and subject was often based on equality, certainly not as dismissive as it is portrayed in contemporary criticism. 

I've started collecting the images of the people who will feature in the top 100. It's a mix of familiar faces (to me) and new ones. To become familiar with the musicians, musicologists, and producers of the recordings in the list I thought I would paint a bunch of miniatures onto a canvas. As I did with the two larger recent canvases I am planning to paint 100 miniatures on it. I organized the canvas in such a way that all 100 portraits have a 4x4 inch square available to them. I neatly gridded out the canvas. I will present the images on here in series of 10 at a time. I have now 45 done. Here's the painting thus far. Below it I'll zoom in on the individual people with a little commentary to go with it.

100 Faces of the Top 100 2022, in progress, 24x36 inches

The first images I'll zoom into are all related to the band The Ex. Several of their songs already secured a spot in the 2022 list even though that list is nowhere near completion. The first one to enter was the song Eoleyo, written by the famous Ethiopian composer and percussionist Mulatu Astatke. Eoleyo is not a famous Astatke song, it was only released locally on cassette tape, but the audience at a concert in Addis Ababa burst out in ecstatic approval. The vocal at the concert are by Katharina Borneveld, who is usually the drummer for The Ex. For the occasion Han Bennink, the most famous of Dutch drummers, sat in. Terrie Ex (Terrie Hessels) is the only one from the six portraits below whom I painted before. He produced the record Ilital: New Ethiopian Dance Music, from which Gue by Tirudel Zenebe is listed high in the Top 100. Another famous Ethiopian musician, the saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, did a whole tour with The Ex. She Ilelle, in the Top 100, was performed on one of those occasions (Groningen.) Andy Moor is the third Ex member I painted. Here are all six:

Tirudel Zenebe

Getatchew Mekuria

Han Bennink

Andy Moor

Katharina Bornefeld

Terrie Ex

The final two images illustrate two songs in one by Cathy Berberian. Her album magnifiCathy I had on tape in the 90s and was thrilled to find a copy on vinyl in a second hand record store in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Both songs, A Flower and The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, by the composer John Cage. A Flower (1950) has no words, just sounds, while the text of The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942) is based on a passage in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. The musical score to accompany both songs was written for closed piano (the lid closed so that the piano becomes a percussion instrument.)

John Cage

Cathy Berberian