Katharina Lienhart & Christoph Maria Moosmann - Hildegard Von Bingen: Antiphona: Liturgie Für Gesang Und Orgel (1998)

Music based on compositions by Benedictine abbess Hildegard Von Bingen (c. 1098-1179), arranged for voice and organ by soprano Katharina Lienhart and organist Christoph Maria Moosmann, to mark 900 years since the (approximate) birth of the composer, visionary and polymath.  

 

Three lengthy tracks and three short ones make for a bewitching hour-plus of well-arranged atmospheric music, with slowly developing dynamics from the organ - if your hearing's as bad as mine, some passages are virtually inaudible unless cranked right up.  When they reach full crescendo though, the organ drones (occasionally bringing to mind organ work by Ligeti or Jarrett) and ghostly vocal sound incredible.  More Hildegard Von Bingen next week.

link

pw: sgtg

Vangelis - Mask (1985)

Dark and symphonic Vangelis from his brief mid-80s period of pushing the boat out a bit, releasing more experimental but always compelling records.

Like its predecessor Soil Festivities (link below), the only track titles on Mask are numbered Movements - six of them here - and appropriately so, for a more classically-minded suite.  The ten-minute opener sets the mood of high drama, in sweeping minor key strokes with a dazzling sequencer pattern rattling along.  Lots of vocals here and throughout, with a choir chanting pseudo-Latin phonemes.  Movement 2 offers a bit of gentle respite before Movement 3 blasts back into the darkness, with particularly effective percussion and a brief calmer interlude with piano.

 

Into the album's second half, and a tuned percussion motif that made me think of Security-era Peter Gabriel underpins Movement 4 as the choir responds to a solo vocalist.  The lengthy Movement 5 returns to the dizzying sequencer runs of the first track, then the gorgeous finale gives the most focus to Vangelis' classic synth palette.  Wonderful, exhilarating music that's ambitious and enjoyable in equal measures.

 

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
L'apocalypse Des Animaux

La Fête Sauvage

Albedo 0.39

Spiral

Opera Sauvage

Antarctica
Soil Festivities
Invisible Connections

Arvo Pärt - Kanon Pokajanen (1998)

Acapella choral masterpiece by Arvo Pärt, written for the 750th anniversary of Cologne Cathedral.  Kanon Pokajanen takes its text from the eighth-century Orthodox (therefore sung in Church Slavonic) Canon of Repentance, with Pärt letting that liturgical language inform the structure of the music.

 

For this premiere recording in June 1997, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir were recorded in Niguliste Church, Tallinn, and sound phenomenal throughout, whether all 28 voices are combined or in the solos and responses.  The work's eleven sections climax in the full-on power of the Prayer After The Canon, to top off a sublime listening experience, whether you want to give it full attention or just wash over you in pure sound.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Spiegel Im Spiegel

Other posts featuring music by Pärt:

Trivium

Re: ECM

Christmas in Budapest, 2016

James MacMillan 60th Birthday Concert, 2019

The Fruit Of Silence at Truro Cathedral, 2019

BBC Concert Orchestra, Proms 2021

Garbarek, Rypdal, Stenson, Andersen, Christensen - Sart (1971)

Some more Terje Rypdal today, alongside an all-star cast of ECM legends on one of the label's most memorable releases from its formative years.  Sart is often regarded as a Jan Garbarek album overall, and indeed this is Disc 1 of the Garbarek box set that also covers Witchi Tai To and Dansere (links below), but really everyone in this quintet deserves their equal billing as per the album cover.

Most of side one is taken up by the title track, with Rypdal wah-ing it into gear as a post-Bitches Brew fusion exploration.  Garbarek is in full-on overblown free jazz mode, but Bobo Stenson's calmer piano keeps the track partly rooted in earlier post-bop traditions.  Fountain Of Tears finds Rypdal in even more avant-garde mode, sliding right up the guitar bridge as Garbarek and Stenson get in more fractured soloing.  A mellow ending sees Garbarek switching to flute.

Side two is introduced with a piano solo, and Stenson continues to sound sublime as Rypdal and Garbarek kick Sound Of Space into gear, both turning in great solo spots.  For the remainder of the album, short composing/playing spotlights for Andersen and Rypdal bookend another great group performance.  Essential early ECM at its finest.

link

pw: sgtg

Jan Garbarek at SGTG:
Afric Pepperbird (with Rypdal, Andersen & Christensen)
Triptykon (with Andersen)
Popofoni (with Stenson, Rypdal, Andersen & Christensen)

Witchi-Tai-To (with Stenson & Christensen)

Dansere (with Stenson & Christensen)
Solstice: Sounds And Shadows (with Christensen)
Sol De Meio Dia
Paths, Prints (with Christensen)
Song For Everyone
Making Music

Neighbourhood

Terje Rypdal - Odyssey In Studio & In Concert (2012 compi, rec. 1975-6)

Double-album (and much more) that may just be Terje Rypdal's crowning achievement.  The Odyssey band was put together at a time when the Norwegian guitarist's playing, writing and arranging had become increasingly adventurous, synthesisng influences from George Russell and György Ligeti to come up with something truly unique.

With a quintet lineup that included trombone, organ, synth and soprano sax (the last two played by Rypdal), Odyssey the album bears only a glancing similarity to the general jazz fusion strains of the 70s.  For the most part, its 87 minutes are spent in a weightless, floating atmosphere, Rydal's guitar lines gliding over the top of glowing organ, synth and accompanied at times by the trombone and sax.  Only on a couple of occasions does it actually take definite rhythmic shape and pulse with forward momentum, most notably on the 23-minute epic Rolling Stone that ends the album.  And due to the album's length, for a long time the single-disc CD that was reissued didn't even include this closing track.

Eventually, in 2012 ECM gave Odyssey the 'Old & New Masters' box set treatment, with the original double album complete across Discs 1 & 2.  But that's not all - Disc 3 contains over an hour of previously unreleased music in the Unfinished Highballs suite.  Commissioned for Swedish Radio, and featuring the Odyssey band in collaboration with the 15-piece Swedish Radio Jazz Group, this is incredible music that does owe more to regular jazz, but still has Rypdal's unconventional signatures all over it.  One piece from the suite would be reworked by Rypdal for a subsequent album: Dine And Dance To The Music Of The Waves became simply Waves (see link below for that album).  The rest of the music went unheard until 2012, and now stands as another high point in Rypdal's output, not least the wondrous groove of Dawn, one of four central tracks to top the 10 minute mark.  Very highly recommended.

Original double-LP cover, 1975

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

Disc 3 link

pw for all: sgtg

 

Previously posted at SGTG:

Waves

Terje Rypdal featured on:

Afric Pepperbird

Popofoni

Satu

Nordic Quartet

The Sea

Vangelis - Spiral (1977)

One more album from Vangelis' time at RCA, and an album where another important piece fell into place to create his classic sound: the newly-released Yamaha CS-80 enters the picture at this point.  Still plenty of electronic prog bombast to enjoy, but there's also a heavy dose of sequencing here, both making the opening title track particularly memorable.  Next up comes one of Vangelis' rare uses of his own voice, processed throughout Ballad.to great effect.  Dervish D is lots of fun, a bouncy, even bluesy sequencer piece that does indeed suggest a whirling dancer.

Two long tracks make up the album's second side.  To The Unknown Man is perhaps the best known track from this album, featured in television soundtracks and elsewhere, and expands Bolero-style on a simple melodic theme over different sections.  To finish, 3 + 3 overlays a driving sequence with a gorgeous melody to great effect.  One of Vangelis' best pre-Polydor albums, if not the best outright.

link

pw:sgtg

 

Previously posted at SGTG:
L'apocalypse Des Animaux

La Fête Sauvage

Albedo 0.39 

Opera Sauvage

Antarctica
Soil Festivities
Invisible Connections

Giacinto Scelsi - Natura Renovatur, Anagamin, Ohoi, Elohim (Orch. Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, 2000)

Icy, ghostly uneasy listening from microtonal magician Giacinto Scelsi (1905-88).  This nice compact album from the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia contains four of Scelsi's works for string orchestra; as the liner notes point out, this is the ideal force for really exploring in depth how Scelsi's music was so unique.  The continuous shifting of the tonal and harmonic ground beneath your feet, coupled with the various advanced techniques applied to the strings, mean that any temporary refuge in a recognisable chord is likely to vanish into thin air the next moment.  

 

This can be appreciated to its fullest extent on the first and lengthiest piece Natura Renovatur (1967), a rewrite of an earlier string quartet.  The unrelenting darkness of Anagamin (1965) is next, contrasted with the calmer, luminous Ohoi (1966), then to finish comes the brief, but no less eerie Elohim, published posthumously.  Incredible music to get lost in on dark nights.

new link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: 
Quatro Pezzi Per Orchestra/Anahit/Uaxuctum 

Hurqualia/Hymnos/Chukrum
Tre Pezzi (Daniel Kientzy, saxophone)

Vangelis - Albedo 0.39 (1976)

Mid-70s Vangelis from his London base at the time, gradually working his way from progressive rock and jazz fusion-infused electronic music to purer electronica over the years that followed.  The tracklist of the roughly space-themed Albedo 0.39 has a nice mix of accessible tunes that would become signature pieces for Vangelis (Pulstar, Alpha), lengthy electronic prog wig-outs (Main Sequence and Nucleogenesis), and ingenious/slightly odd connecting tracks in between.  Few more Vangelis albums to come, been trying to fill some gaps in my listening to him that I haven't dipped in to in years.

link

pw: sgtg

 

Previously posted at SGTG:
L'apocalypse Des Animaux

La Fête Sauvage

Opera Sauvage

Antarctica
Soil Festivities
Invisible Connections

Vassilis Tsabropoulos - Akroasis (2003)

Very lovely solo piano suite from Athens native Vassilis Tsabropoulos, previously featured here in trio format - see link below.  Akroasis is based on five traditional Byzantine hymns, which together with three of Tsabropoulos' own compostions "became a poem of eight pictures".  Enjoy just under 45 minutes of blissful piano poetry.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Achirana

Conlon Nancarrow (performed by Ensemble Modern) - Studies, Tango, Trio etc (1993)

Yvar Mikhashoff (1941-93) was a New York-based pianist, composer and professor; he is notable in relation to Conlon Nancarrow for his ensemble arrangements of Nancarrow's studies for player piano.  A couple of these were heard on this blog last year in a Proms performance (links below) - now, here's an album's worth, filled out by a handful of other Nancarrow compositions.

The seven early Studies presented here were arranged by Mikhashoff in consultation with Nancarrow, who it turned out had envisaged fiendishly complex ensemble arrangements from the outset, perhaps performed by mechanical means.  That the technology wasn't feasible at the time to make this happen led to the eventual adoption of the player piano as Nancarrow's main mode of expression.  The performances here, by Ensemble Modern, are therefore as close as they can be to the instrumentation Nancarrow originally had in mind, and are tons of fun to listen to as they burst into life, like crazed, hyper-polyrhythmic cut-ups of Gershwin or Ives.

Mikhashoff's correspondence with Nancarrow, and his own investigations, also led to the definitive presentations here of some of Nancarrow's lesser known chamber works.  The Trio for clarinet, bassoon and piano (1942) was restored to its complete score here; the Piece For Small Orchestra was written as late as 1986, and the Sarabande and Toccata date back to the 1930s.  Lastly, Mikhashoff had a bit of a thing for commissioning tango pieces from various composers, so Nancarrow duly obliges.  All of it is wonderful, joyously bonkers music from a true original.

link

pw: sgtg

Conlon Nancarrow at SGTG:

Studies For Player Piano, Vol 1-4

Two Studies (Live at BBC Proms 2020)

Tangerine Dream - White Eagle (1982)

Another 40 minutes of Froese, Franke & Schmoelling doing their thing with advancing technology and increasing compositional skill, but an album that sometimes gets a bit underrated by me due to its proximity to the magnificent Hyperborea.  White Eagle has a similar structure, with a side-long piece against three shorter ones, but in reverse, so we get the 20 minutes of Mojave Plan first.  The track gradually builds for the first ten minutes before a swirl of phasing brings in a faster rhythm base to carry the rest in more melodic, upbeat mode.

Midnight In Tula is next, with its cheeky Trans-Europe Express-esque intro giving way to a faster and catchier electro-pop track, a marker of things to come.  Convention Of The 24 is a more atmospheric and static piece, experimenting for just under ten minutes with the hypnotic vibe they'd perfect on Hyperborea, then the title track is a nice short melodic closer.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Exit
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Tomás Luis De Victoria - Requiem, Officum Defunctorum (Gabrieli Consort/Paul McCreesh) (1995)

 

Late-Renaissance choral music in a masterful recording by the Gabrieli Consort led by Paul McCreesh, the plaintive singing bathed in the natural reverb of Brinkburn Priory, Northumberland.  Victoria (1548-1611) was the most significant composer associated with the Counter-Reformation in Spain, and was a contemporary of Palestrina.  Working for a while under the patronage of Empress Maria of Austria, Victoria composed this funeral mass on the Empress' death in 1603.  Beautifully sombre music, plus grinning skeleton cover, equals the perfect package.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa - Jazz From Hell (1986)

More computer music from Zappa at his Synclavier, with the exception of one Shut Up 'N Play Year Guitar-style live snippet from a 1982 concert in Saint-Étienne, presumably included for a bit of textural variety.  

 

On all of the Synclavier performances, Zappa's increasing adeptness with the system - sampling odd sounds, pairing samples of different instruments together - comes through in the increasing sophistication of these tracks.  Some of them may sound like dated video-game music by today's standards, but they're all remarkable creations for the mid 80s, and remain enjoyable.  The opening Night School, the most straightforwardly melodic piece, is probably my favourite thing here, but the tricksier ones like While You Were Art II, the title track and the polyrhythmic tumble of G-Spot Tornado are lots of fun too.

link

pw: sgtg

Frank Zappa at SGTG:

Lumpy Gravy

Waka/Jawaka

The Grand Wazoo

Roxy & Elsewhere

One Size Fits All

Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar

Boulez Conducts Zappa - The Perfect Stranger 

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol. 2: The Helsinki Concert

The Perfect Stranger (live 2018)