Taking a little break, so here’s one of my favorite recent programs again:

Hans Otte

Excerpts from Hans Otte’s Das Buch der Klänge, The Book of Sounds.
Hans Otte, piano (1983) Celestial Harmonies (reissue) 12069 (2006)

Hans Otte passed away Christmas day, 2007, at age 81.

The music of

Tania León:

Bailarin (1998) David Starobin, guitar
Axon (2002) Mari Kimura, violin and interactive computer
Arenas d’un Tiempo (1992) Speculum Musicae
Horizons (1999) NDR Sinfonie Orchester
Satiné (2000) Susan Grace, Alice Rybak, pianos

From the new release on Bridge 9231 (2008)

Tania León’s website.

We also mark the passing, at age 94, of maverick composer Henry Brant on April 26 in Santa Barbara, CA., with a very early work from 1938, his portrait of the three Marx brothers, Hommage aux Freres Marx: Chico, Groucho, and Harpo. Henry is the tin fife soloist with the Boston Musica Viva on this out-of-print Newport Classics release ND85588 from 1994.

Read the NY Times obit by Allen Kozinn, and Kyle Gann’s comments.

Henry Brant on OtherMinds.org including an interview.

Peter Adriaansz  is a young Dutch composer born in Seattle, Washington and now living in Den Haag, Netherlands. His chamber and solo pieces are widely performed in Europe and in the US

Triple Concerto (part 1) (2003) - Array Music
Serenades II-IV (2004) - Catch Electric Guitar Quartet
La Voce di Zarlino (part 1) (2006) - Compagnie Bisschof
9 through 99 (2003) - Ives Ensemble

(unreleased recordings provided by the composer)

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001)

Oresteïa (1966-87)
Radio-France production,
Strasbourg Music Festival October 1987
Salabert/Harmonia Mundi France SCD 8906 (1990)

Voile (1995) (Veil)
Ensemble Resonanz, Johannes Kalitzke, cond.
Mode 152 (2005)

In 1966, Greek composer Iannis Xenakis was asked to write music to accompany a condensed theatrical production of Aeschylus’s ORESTEIA: the trilogy Agamemnon, The Choëphori, and The Eumenides. In 1987, Xenakis completed his Oresteia by adding another scene, Kassandra.

Xenakis, composer, architect, engineer, was born in 1922 and died in 2001. His music is quite unique, and his Oresteia extremely dramatic. Rather than aim for strict accuracy in recreating the world of ancient Greek music, Xenakis creates a totally new sound world for this tragic celebration of the birth of human justice as opposed to divine justice.

Xenakis uses the classical Greek phonetics of Aeschylus’s text to establish melodic and rhythmic basis for the music. The dramatic effect is intense.

Xenakis Website

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen’s birth, December 1908. So maybe it’s more like the anniversary of his conception as well.

Son of an English teacher father who translated Shakespeare, and a symbolist poet mother, Messiaen, who died in 1992, is still perhaps the most unique and exotic of 20th century composers.

There is an excellent one-page appreciation of Messiaen’s music and role in 20c music in last Sunday’s New York Times by Anthony Tommasini.

And, it looks like there will be many concerts honoring Messiaen in New York City and Europe this year. Here is a partial list of events.

One of Messiaen’s great interests was bird song. Many of his pieces feature his own transcriptions and interpretations of the songs of birds, from the ordinary to the exotic.

The next MFOM broadcast will feature two bird-song based pieces that are very rarely performed: Réveil des Oiseaux (Bird’s Awakening) for piano and orchestra, and La Fauvette des Jardins (The Garden Warbler) for piano solo.

Details:

Messiaen: Réviel des Oiseaux (1953) (Birds’ Awakening)
Yvonne Loriod, piano; Orchestre National de France, Kent Nagano, cond
Erato 0630-12702 (1996)

Messiaen: La Fauvette des Jardins (1970) (The Garden Warbler)
Peter Hill, piano. Unicorn-Kanchana DKP 9090 (1990)
And stay tuned to Music From Other Minds for more Messiaen throughout the year.

It’s back to the 80’s all over again:

Daniel Goode: TUNNEL-FUNNEL (1985)
The Crosstown Ensemble with Eric Grunin conducting - Tzadik TZ7029 (1998)

Steve Peters: The Webster Cycles (1981) (on a new Cold Blue release)
J.A. Deane, trombones

IMAGINING GAMELAN: CONTEMPORARY COMPOSITIONS FOR GAMELAN & GAMELAN-INSPIRED WORKS FOR WESTERN INSTRUMENTS – April in Santa Cruz

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 / 07:30 PM - 09:30 PM
Music Center Recital Hall

Event Description: Featuring pieces by visiting West Javanese composer Nano S and visiting New York composer Daniel Goode. Plus compositions by Paul Nauert, Steve Reich, John Cage, Andrew Marine, Noah Meites, and others. Performed by UCSC Gamelan program with Linda Burman-Hall and Undang Sumarna, the UCSC Percussion Ensemble directed by William Winant (in collaboration with the UCSC Contemporary Music Ensemble), and others.

Contact:
UCSC Ticket Office Phone: (831)-459-2159
Email: artsevents@ucsc.edu Web: http://www.SantaCruzTickets.com

It’s Spring. Finally.

So let’s hear Le Sacre du Printemps.

First, a 1929 recording with Stravinsky conducting the Orchestra Symphonique de Paris; and then in a two piano version arranged by Stravinsky himself.

Igor Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps (1910) (parts I and II)
Le Orchestra Symphonique do Paris, Igor Stravinsky conducting
Recorded at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, May 1929
Re-issued on Pearl (Pavilion Records UK) GEMM CD 9334 (1989)

Le Sacre du Printemps - Two piano version (Stravinsky) (part II)
Christian Ivaldi, Noël Lee, pianos. Arion ARN 68041 (1988)

Wikipedia has a nice article about Le Sacre.

To read about the cultural and historical environment at the time Stravinsky embarked on Le Sacre, read Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, (2003) by Orlando Figes .

Peter Hill published a  book about Le Sacre in 2000 and you might be able to read parts of it on Google Books.

Happy Spring!

Welcome to the redesigned Music From Other Minds website.
Links to all the previous program listings can be found on the Listings page.
Let us know how it looks to you. Leave a comment.

Two brand new releases from the independent label OgreOgress Productions out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Alan Hovhaness: Talin - Slovak Philharmonic (strings) and Christina Fong (viola) - OgreOgress New Release

John Cage: Twenty-Eight - Prague Winds - OgreOgress - (Radio Premiere)

Kui Dong: Blue Bird and Red Bird (Prepared Piano Improvisation) - Other Minds 1011 (2007)

Elena Kats-Chernin: Gypsy Ramble (1996)
- Patricia Pollett, viola; Nicholas Bochner, cello; Carson Dron, piano. - Tall Poppies TP181 (2006)

Alwynne Pritchard: Invisible Cities (1999) - Ian Pace, piano - Metier MSV CD 92040 (2002)

Hyo-Shin Na: Walking, Walking (2004) - Thomas Schultz, piano - New World Records 80674 (2008)

You are reading the THIRD EDITION of the Music from Other Minds playlist website.

Here are links to playlist pages that cover all the programs since we started MFOM on KALW.

We maintained the website manually until March 2007 when we switched to Movable Type. In March 2008 we switched to WordPress, which may explain the changes in formatting.

• »Programs 1 thru 12 (7 Jan - 25 March 2005)
• »Programs 13 thru 24 (1 April - 17 June 2005)
• »Programs 25-34 (25 June - 26 August 2005)
• »Progams 35-50 (2 September - 16 December 2005)
• »Progams 51-60 (February 3 - April 7 2006)
• »Programs 61-70 (April 14 - June 16 2006)
• »Programs 71-89 (June 23 - December 1 2006)
• »Programs 90-101 (December 6 2007 - March 30 2007)
• April 2007 - programs 102-105
• May 2007 - programs 106-109
• June 2007 - programs 110-114
• September 2007 - programs 115-118
• -thru March 2008 - programs 119-137