Night After Night

Album review: Morton Feldman, 'Crippled Symmetry'

Morton Feldman: 'Crippled Symmetry'
The Feldman Soloists.
Frozen Reeds fr 1/2; two CDs
The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2012

When I bought my copy of this superb new recording just under two months ago, mail order direct from the label was among your few options for acquiring it.

It's still a good one, but U.S. record collectors will want to note this Crippled Symmetry is now in domestic distribution. Now you can order it directly from Forced Exposure, the distributor, or from Barnes & Noble if you prefer. You'll find the best price, at least as of this morning, at ArkivMusic.

Mikhail Rudy at the Guggenheim Museum, September 27, 2012

Mikhail Rudy, by Ian Douglas/The New York Times

Mikhail Rudy at the Guggenheim Museum, September 27, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 29, 2012

Given a bit more space and time to describe this unique intersection of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition with a video presentation based on a staging of the work created by Vassily Kandinsky in 1928, I might have dug a bit more deeply into the way that Kandinsky, using abstract images typical of his style, still managed to evoke figurative depictions of Russian architecture and costumes in a way that neatly suited what Mussorgsky meant to conjure with his music. Ah, deadlines.

TILT Brass with Nate Wooley at University Settlement, September 21, 2012

TILT Brass with Nate Wooley at University Settlement, September 21, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 26, 2012

Scroll down past reviews of Kimiko Ishizaka and the Talea Ensemble for a succinct snapshot of a rich collaboration between New York agit-prop new-music ensemble TILT Brass and trumpeter Nate Wooley, who presented the fourth and latest installment of his substantial Seven Storey Mountain project on Friday night as part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT).

If I'd had a bit more space, I'd have devoted it to the New York premiere of Louis Andriessen's de Volharding, a brilliant 45-minute magnum opus from 1972 that caused the founding of the long-running Dutch new-music group Orkest de Volharding—whose instrumentation, I was fascinated to learn, was similar to that of another brilliant Dutch institution, the Willem Breuker Kollektief, whose leader, the late saxophonist and composer Willem Breuker, had founded Orkest de Volharding with Andriessen.

The performance, trance-inducing and paint-peeling by turns, was superb. The piece is not one of flashy display, mostly, but it seemed slightly paradoxical that the showiest playing of a brass-oriented night came from pianist Stephen Gosling in the work's lengthy, cyclonic minimalist dance-frenzy opening.

Incidentally, speaking of the Willem Breuker Kollektief, that wonderful band is paying homage to its late founder and leader with a farewell tour currently underway. The Kollektief will perform at ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn next Thursday, Oct. 4; sorry to say that I won't be able to attend, but you should consider it. And the Festival of New Trumpet Music runs through Oct. 6.

Efterklang with the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 22, 2012

Casper Clausen with the Wordless Music Orchestra, by Joshua Bright/The New York Times

Efterklang with the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 22, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 24, 2012

Belatedly getting around to posting my bit on the collaboration between Danish art-pop trio Efterklang and the Wordless Music Orchestra, which featured handsome new orchestrations by Danish composer Karsten Fundal and New York postclassical mainstay Missy Mazzoli.

Two items of related interest from The New York Times: Allan Kozinn's article about Limor Tomer and the changes afoot in the Met Museum's Concerts & Lectures department this season, and a post-concert blog post by Wm. Ferguson of The New York Times Magazine. The concert was streamed live on Q2, but evidently is not archived.

Parenthetically speaking, you can always kind of tell what kind of week is underway by how long it takes me to post a link to a published Times review, a process that seldom takes more than 20 minutes when I add comments and links, and far less time when I don't. This has been a rough one so far, but in the spirit of keeping things in perspective, let's say it's been a 7.5 on a 10 scale—which isn't so bad, all things considered.

Playlist.

Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Conscious Currents (Bandcamp)

Jason Lescalleet - Songs About Nothing (Erstwhile)

Andrea Neumann/Bonnie Jones - green just as I could see (Erstwhile)

Christian Wolff/Keith Rowe - untitled (ErstLive 010) (Erstwhile)

Taku Unami/Takahiro Kawaguchi - Teatro Assente (Erstwhile)

Jérôme Noetinger/Will Guthrie - Face Off (Erstwhile)

So Percussion with Grey Mcmurray - Where (we) Live (Cantaloupe)

UB40 - Geffery Morgan… (EMI UK, via MOG)

Rush - Clockwork Angels (Roadrunner, via MOG)

Mike Shiflet - The Choir, the Army (Under the Spire)

Mike Shiflet - Merciless (Type)

Mike Shiflet - Sufferers (Type)

Nate Wooley, Chris Corsano and C. Spencer Yeh - Seven Storey Mountain (Important)

Opeth - Heritage (Roadrunner, via MOG)

Porcupine Tree - In Absentia (Lava, via MOG)

Guenter Schlienz - Urban Tapes (Goldtimers)

Isle of Sodor - West Optimos (Cylindrical Habitat Modules)

Isle of Sodor - Double Vision (Cylindrical Habitat Modules)

Various Artists - Shadow Colors and Maybe Insects (Watery Starve Press)

Porcupine Tree - Deadwing (Lava, via MOG)

Efterklang - Piramida (4AD)

Thousand Foot Whale Claw - Time Brothers (Holodeck)

Amasa•Gana - untitled (Holodeck)

Porcupine Tree - Anesthetize (Kscope DVD)

International Contemporary Ensemble at Miller Theatre, September 20, 2012

International Contemporary Ensemble, by Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

International Contemporary Ensemble at Miller Theatre, September 20, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 22, 2012

“Credit goes to the International Contemporary Ensemble…for finding a new and illuminating context in which to position Cage, by juxtaposing his music with a benchmark serialist composition by Pierre Boulez” — which is to say that ICE interleaved short works by John Cage among the movements of Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître. In so doing, the group challenged preconceptions and inclinations about both composers, while doing their compositions full honors. Well done.

Playlist.

Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made (E.A.R. Music)

Toshimaru Nakamura/English - One Day (Erstwhile)

William Duckworth - The Time Curve Preludes - R. Andrew Lee (Irritable Hedgehog, via Bandcamp)

Toshimaru Nakamura/Ami Yoshida - Soba to Bara (Erstwhile)

Toshimaru Nakamura - Egrets (Samadhi Sound)

Annie Gosfield - Almost Truths and Open Deceptions (Tzadik)

Thelonious Monk - It's Monk's Time (Columbia Legacy, via MOG)

Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness (Earache, via MOG)

Napalm Death - Harmony Corruption (Earache, via MOG)

Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious (Earache, via MOG)

Godflesh - Streetcleaner (Earache, via MOG)

Pain Killer - Guts of a Virgin/Buried Secrets (Earache, via MOG)

Bermuda Link - Depth Quench (self-released)

Bermuda Link - Mind Swipe (self-released)

Xiphiidae - Flesh Threes (self-released)

Digital Natives - Whats Doing There (Plaid Lake, via Bandcamp)

Digital Natives - Abrahamsak (Twin Palm Cinematics, via Bandcamp)

Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 3; Maurice Ravel - Piano Concerto in G; Gaspard de la Nuit - Martha Argerich, Berlin Philharmonic/Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon, via MOG)

Sasha Cooke - If You Love for Beauty - The Colburn Orchestra/Yehuda Gilad (Yarlung)

Fennesz - FA 2012 (Editions Mego)

Katatonia - Dead End Kings (Peaceville, via MOG)

Zebulon - Zebulon (Permanent Nostalgia)

Perspectives - Failure Sermon (Permanent Nostalgia)

Tod Dockstader - Eight Electronic Pieces (Folkways, via MOG)

Rush - Grace Under Pressure (Mercury, via MOG)

Tansy Davies - spine - Azalea; Concordia; Joby Burgess; Huw Watkins; Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Chris Austin; (NMC)

Hespèrion XXI - Esprit d'Arménie (Alia Vox)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni - Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Rolando Villazón, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Luca Pisaroni, Mojca Erdmann, Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Deutsche Grammophon)

Supertramp - Paris (A&M, via MOG)

Royallen / Hunting Rituals - Meandering Tape (Permanent Nostalgia)

Andrew Chadwick - Kerning (Permanent Nostalgia)

Moving Sounds at the Czech Center, September 14, 2012

Ensemble Mise-en, by Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Moving Sounds at the Czech Center, September 14, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 17, 2012

I've reviewed Moving Sounds performances twice before in The New York Times, once last year and once the year before. Allan Kozinn did the honors the first year, and also reviewed a 2010 performance of Georg Friedrich Haas's String Quartet No. 3 as part of this consistently rich series.

The Sirotas Play Sirota at the Manhattan School of Music, September 13, 2012

Jonah and Nadia Sirota, by Hiroyuki Ito/The New York Times

“The Sirotas Play Sirota” at the Manhattan School of Music, September 13, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 17, 2012

American Contemporary Music Ensemble at Le Poisson Rouge, September 11, 2012

ACME, by Michael Appleton/The New York Times

American Contemporary Ensemble at Le Poisson Rouge, September 11, 2012
The New York Times, Sept. 12, 2012

This one posed difficulties, and one most of all: It was hard to get over my pre-existing feelings of ambivalence toward Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 — its methods, tone and message — and even harder to set aside my lingering deep distaste for the controversial original cover of the Nonesuch recording of that piece, and for the initial responses from Mr. Reich and the record label, who eventually and rightly replaced the cover art.

That said, listening to music and sorting through your responses shouldn't necessarily be easy, and this was a challenge worth taking up. If, in the end, I still find WTC 9/11 to be a piece I would not choose to revisit — even as I understand almost entirely what prompted Reich to create what he did — hearing the piece played in the close wake of its precursors, the superb Different Trains and the underrated Triple Quartet, caused me to pick up compositional nuances I'd previously missed in the heat of the work's initial arrival. That, plus outstanding performances and sympathetic company, made the experience worthwhile.

Regarding the couple who left midway through: I probably will never know precisely what it was that made them pack up and go. Given that they stiffed their waiter on the bill, it feels safe to presume that someone was uncontrollably upset. My other tablemates were dismayed on the waiter's behalf, but he assured everyone that the shortfall wouldn't be counted against him.

I added what should have been their tip to my tab.

You should be able to listen to the concert fairly soon on the NPR Music website… what's presently posted is not the concert, but studio recordings used as a space-holder. (The woodwinds midway through are kind of a dead giveaway, no?)

Update: You can listen to the entire concert on the NPR Music website now. Turns out the pristine audio posted on that page actually is the ACME performance…the confusing woodwind bit was a recording of Reich's Vermont Counterpoint originally inserted to cover the intermission. A tip of the hat to all at NPR for capturing such a fine recording, and for getting it posted so quickly.