Quotation For Mid May

What I want...
- is always the same: a music which in order to be grasped, does not require a privileged intellectual training, but can rely uniquely upon its compositional clarity and logic; a music which is at the same time the expression and the aesthetic form of a curiosity able to reflect everything - including the illusion of progressive-ness. Art as a fore-taste of freedom in an age without freedom.

Helmut Lachenmann: from the liner notes of the Kairos CD pictured above. Available as usual from the small but ever-growing and select CD stock at the Complement.Inversion.Etc shop, or store if you are in the U.S.A.

Also, check out this audio interview with Lachenmann at/with the Slought Foundation way back in 2008.

Free Stuff!!: Ligeti Documentary with English Subs, Plus Other Stuff Inc Audio Interview

Ligeti: A still from the documentary linked to here.

That's right, that documentary on Ligeti you might have come across, the only one ever made as far as I know which unfortunately never had English subtitles, well now it has, sort of, with a bit of jiggery-pokery.

Here is the English blurb and credits..

Runtime: 64mins
Language: French (no subtitles)

Réalisateur: Michel Follin
Auteurs: Judit Kele, Michel Follin, Arnaud de Mezamat
CoProduction: Abacaris Film, Artline Films, La Sept Arte, RTBF, Magyar
Televizio, Productions du Sablier, Centre Georges Pompidou

Grand Prix, Festival International du Film d’Art de Montréal (1994) Prix Sacem, Film de musique (1994)

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti's biography typifies the displaced cosmopolitan, truly at home only in the international community of music. Appropriately enough, this revealing film portrait of his life and music has a train journey as its central metaphor, with Ligeti gazing through the window onto the changing middle-European landscape. His music - innovative, complex, brilliantly eclectic - accompanies his reflections and memories.

I shall explain this jiggery-pokery, I found a 'DVD' copy of the documentary on a non-legit music site that cannot be named here (see Gerry in the legal department if you want an explanation, 5th floor.)

Someone posted a comment on the page with a link to a file containing some English subtitles he/she and his/her friend had put together (unfortunately the French speaking side of the partnership 'disappeared' at some point so apparently the last few minutes of the documentary have been translated with Google translate, you can still understand the text though.)

They are ok as far as I can tell (I don't speak French unfortunately), not brilliant but good considering it was a non-professional DIY job, some spelling and grammatical errors here and there etc.

Overall I found it watchable and informative anyway so thanks very much to those involved.

I shall get to the point then, you can download the video file legally and for free from the great UBUWEB site, link here.

This video file has no subtitles so for those you will need to go here (a Deposit Files link to the .SRT file I just uploaded there, it's only 43kb).

UPDATE: Alternative link to SRT file here.

The original .SRT file was made to match the much larger 'DVD' version on the site-that-cannot-be-named (I don't think there is a real DVD version, I couldn't find one anyway, it might just be a better quality copy, it's over 2gig.) I renamed it to match the UBUWEB version, happily, the two work together ok (the UBUWEB version is a more manageable 600+ meg.)

To get the subtitles to work simply place the .SRT file in the same folder as the video file, then make sure you have subtitles selected in your media player (I don't know if this will work with Macs BTW, try it, if not do some searching for how to use .SRT files)

And Bob's your uncle, you can now watch the documentary in English. If you speak French and think the translation is terrible and needs doing again, let me know, send me the text and timings and I'll make another version of it (I might cut it into pieces and put it on YouTube too.)

That's not all, when looking for a decent picture for this post I came across this site called Lichtensteiger, not sure what it's all about (home page says something about digital design) but on their servers somewhere is this page on Ligeti, featuring lots of tracks to stream and various links and quotes, including one back to the BBC's Radio3 site featuring the John Tusa interview with Ligeti (in English) which you can stream here (it covers quite a bit of the same material as the documentary.)

Quote (quote.....quote)......quote, etc

Pierre, in godfather mode.

Jed Distler: What about free improvisation?

Pierre Boulez: You can improvise with dissonant chords, or chords which are not related, or parallel chords. That's true. That can be a source of inspiration. Even Beethoven improvised, maybe to excite himself, but he wrote the piece. And that was more important. I don't think you can improvise his Op. 106 [the "Hammerklavier" Sonata]!

.....

JD: How can one learn to compose in the computer age?

PB: First, I think you have to learn by yourself. You learn through analyzing scores. Not because you have read analyses written by other people. That can be an introduction, but in the end you have to learn how to analyze the scores yourself. You have to learn how to be confronted by the scores of other composers. Then you learn how to compose. But that's a very personal, individual task, and nobody can really teach you that.

Taken from this interview and this one at Andante.com. (another part in the same series is here).

Bird Talk, It`s not Cheep

Ok ok, it`s a terrible title, but the content is worthwhile, a link to Mel Martin`s webpage featuring audio interviews with quite a few major jazz 'cats', Charlie Parker being top of the list.

Interesting (to me) that in the Paul Desmond interview Parker talks about wanting to study with Varese (Parker didn`t live long enough however). This is something most current post-bop jazzers wouldn`t expect perhaps, don`t just study the omnibook guys, listen to Varese, and Bartok and Stravinsky, other Parker favourites.

Penderecki Interview

Free to download here, on the Composing Thoughts blog.


Part of Penderecki`s annotated score for 'Ubu Rex', found on Accuracy and Aesthetics, who obtained it via WFMU`s blog.

Ross Does The Rounds

Seen all over the interweb New Yorker music critic and author Alex Ross discusses his book 'The Rest is Noise' in various places..

At Google, with Charlie Rose, with the Guardian, on BBC Radio3`s Music Matters programme and an AmazonWire podcast.

Whatever you think of his specific musical biases/tastes he is an effective propagandist for 20th century music (70,000 copies sold says so, I have not read any of them, might do when it comes out on paperback)

[Correction: it may already be out on paperback but it is out of stock on Amazon and cant find it on other sites]

Elliott Carter and The Grateful Dead

Curious how Elliott Carter, one of our most venerable composers of music for the concert hall, and Phil Lesh, best known as the bass player for the Grateful Dead, ever crossed paths? Though you might not ordinarily connect these two composers, there are some surprising musical links between them, supported by a friendship of many years.

http://www.counterstreamradio.org/specialprograms/carter_lesh/default.asp


Photo by Jeffrey Herman

Radio 3 Composer Interviews

Part of John Tusa`s series...

Gyorgy Ligeti...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/ligeti_transcript.shtml

Louis Andriessen

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/andriessen_transcript.shtml

Harrison Birtwistle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/birtwistle_transcript.shtml

Elliot Carter

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/carter_transcript.shtml

Also transcribed in his book 'On Creativity'

The Universal Mind of Bill Evans

Interview with or a documentary about Bill Evans (including some amusing Steve Allen interludes), good title too.

Subtitled 'The Creative Process and Self Teaching'

Go to YouTube for the other parts.

Xenakis Video Interview

Ive uploaded an interview with Iannis Xenakis (interviewed by Harry Halbreich), not sure who it belongs to or who shot the footage but I found it on DivxStage.6 and downloaded it before it closed down (on the 28th of Feb 2008).

It was titled 'by GK', not sure who that is/was. I claim fair use on it anyway as nobody else seems to have the interview online and it seems a shame not to share it (ive reframed the interview and edited it a bit, adding pauses, also peak limited the audio, more details on YouTube)