A voice from heaven September 27, 2007
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A Voice From Heaven
“Transcendent and awe-inspiring” are the first words that come to mind upon hearing and seeing the live footage of the late Qawwali master on this DVD -Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Nusrat brought worldwide attention to this ancient style of devotional music that is set to lyrical poems praising and yearning for the ultimate mystical experience-unity, a return to the source-an endless well of inspiration that has its roots in the Sufi traditions. Peppered throughout by western commentary from producers and artists who had the privilage to work with Nusrat , this DVD [DVD 298 at the Media Center] is a great introduction to Qawwali. If you like what you see, be sure to browse our catalog for CD’s of Qawwali music that can also be checked out.
Paul Lansky September 25, 2007
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Composer Paul Lansky, on the music faculty at Princeton for decades, is one of the leading lights of the world of computer music, a world that often seems to speak to itself, with not so much traffic moving in and out of the greater musical universe. This is certainly not the case for Lansky, whose ears are open to the possibilities of incorporating sounds and harmonies both from the natural world, and from the world of popular music. Many of his pieces musically transform source material such as speech and even traffic noise.
My favorite among his compositions, a piece that makes me smile and tap my foot, even dance, is the infectious Table’s Clear, from his CD Homebrew (Bridge 9035).
Lansky takes the musical play of his sons tapping on glasses, pots and pans, as well as hand claps and even arm-farts, and creates an 18-minute expanse of funky rhythms, a sort of swinging kitchen gamelan, beginning with individual tinks and doinks, and little by little building up an irresistible groove, washed with swathes of diatonic and occasionally bluesy harmonies. Lansky has a large and varied output, including a move to pieces for conventional instruments over the last decade, but for my money, Table’s Clear is definitely the place to begin to get to know his work.
You can hear Table’s Clear and other works by Lansky via the Classical Music Library streaming service. You can also download (for free) dozens of pieces in mp3 from his website at Princeton.
Connecticut Yankee September 20, 2007
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Charles Ives (1874-1954)
The greatest and most original of American composers? Perhaps. Thirty-three years ago the music of Charles Ives was everywhere, in celebration of the centennial of his birth. Ives, born and raised in Danbury, Connecticut, educated at Yale, where he played baseball and studied composition with Horatio Parker, was seen as someone who refused to compromise his art by watering it down for feeble ears accustomed to American regurgitations of European musical models, someone whose music reflected the granitic cragginess of the New England landscape and the ideals of the transcendental thinkers of Concord, Massachusetts – Emerson, and especially Thoreau. Since the heady days of the Ives centennial and the American Bicentennial, the tide has receded, and years can pass before one sees a work by this composer on a program.
Where to start? For me there are certain works which are fundamental – the two great piano sonatas, the Fourth Symphony, with a level of complexity almost impossible to hear outside the concert hall, the two string quartets, the four sonatas for violin and piano.
And the truly mystical works for orchestra – the Unanswered Question, the sempiternal flow of the Housatonic at Stockbridge. Of equal importance is Ives’ writing – the Essays Before A Sonata, and the Memos.
A visit to the Music Library at UNC Chapel Hill September 17, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : UNC Chapel Hill, Uncategorized , add a commentIf you are a power user of the Music Library at Duke, you may also want to take advantage of the services and collections of our consortial counterpart at UNC Chapel Hill, where you can borrow directly using your Duke library card.
You can get to the UNC campus for free by using the Robertson Bus, which leaves from the main West Campus bus stop every half-hour M-F during the day (see details ).
The first time you borrow at UNC you will need to register at the circulation desk at the Davis Library circ desk. Then you walk a minute or two past the Student Stores and Undergraduate Library to the imposing mass of the Wilson Library, but don’t walk up the stairs and in through the columns – you should go in the unassuming door on the left (east) side of the building. The Music Library is to your left as you enter, after the stairwell.
As a Duke borrower you will not be able to borrow videos, CDs, periodicals, or microforms. Periodicals and microforms from UNC Chapel Hill can be requested via ILL at Duke. To borrow videos please contact Ken Wetherington at Lilly Library.
You will be able to borrow books and scores. The normal borrowing period will be 90 days for faculty borrowers, and 30 days for students. At present it is advisable to return the items yourself to the UNC Libraries.
On the Transmigration of Souls September 12, 2007
Posted by Tom Moore in : 9/11, John Adams, September 11 , add a comment
John Adams, On the Transmigration of Souls. CD 11689
“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen” spoke Wittgenstein. “Whereof one has been silent, thereof one may have to speak” wrote Herman Tennessen, referencing the older philosopher. The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 is a subject about which it is dangerous to speak, if one takes the issues it raises seriously. Thus it is all the more surprising that composer John Adams should have created a powerfully-moving and, I believe, lasting work of musical art centered around the tragedy. Aesthetically the danger in treating such a subject that the artistic results can descend to bathos or cheap emotional change-ringing. On the Transmigration of Souls is far from this – it is a piece that is cathartic and sublime. Adams chose not to set a new text “about” September 11, but rather created a verbal frame based on “found” material – missing-persons notices, reminisicences of those who died by their beloveds, and a partial list of the names of those who died. Among the striking moments in this 25-minute work for chorus (no soloists) and large orchestra is the opening, with a sense of floating uneasily, drifting, perhaps like the dust from the towers carried in the wind, and yet a very American sound which recalls the music of a New York composer of a century ago, Charles Ives. I won’t go on in detail, but suffice it to say that this is already one of the great musical works of the twenty-first century.
