a few musical links for the weekend
French Benedictine nuns release 7,000 hours of Gregorian chant
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/french-benedictine-nuns-gregorian-chant-neumz/
https://neumz.com/
Atanas Ourkouounoz performs Babini devetini with Mie Ogura.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ZTlfMcZ6o
This is, seriously, the greatest flute and guitar duo I have ever heard. I have already made it plain I've admired Atanas Ourkouzounov as a composer since the very first posts of the blog but it's worth repeating, I think he's an excellent composer and the duo he is part of is the best duo of its kind on the planet. As avant garde as his work is, drawing on Bulgarian and Macedonian folk music, using extended techniques, and taking music where progressive rock and jazz have often aspired to go, what I believe sets his work apart is that he offsets all of the surface complexities (of which there are many) with elegantly simple forms.
This one is a HT to Bryan Townsend, a recital of music for flute and piano by Francis Poulenc and Frank Martin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mYa0RRAFQ0&feature=youtu.be
Ethan has remixed part of Bartoks Mikrokosmos with the "Amen" break, which is pretty sweet. I happen to dig Bartok myself and regard Bartok's string quartets as a touchstone in the string literature of the 20th century and those dive-bomb glissandi from the Third String Quartet are the most metal musical moments before heavy metal was officially a thing. :) Contra John Borstlap on jazz and classical music, whether we're talking about Maurice Ravel or Bela Bartok some capable composers in the concert music traditions paid homage to blues and jazz and, famously in the case of Bartok, wrote music for and worked with Benny Goodman.
Perhaps appropos of nothing, here's George Russell's Living Time, a project he worked on with Bill Evans. He wasn't happy with how the work was mastered. I can hear why, although there's a lot about the music itself that I enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzsGQPSds9E&t=108s
Russell eventually did a new take with mastering more to his liking though, alas, by that time Bill Evans had passed. Still, here's the newer take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0-gvB0s2N0
POSTSCRIPT 8:55a
I'm gonna throw in Contrasts by Bartok just because. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqROu7Dw9lo
2 comments:
I didn't know that Benny Goodman had commissioned music from Bartók, that's so cool. When I went to look it up, I also found his swing arrangement of Peter and the Wolf, which is pretty great.
Contrasts is pretty cool, even if some Bartok scholars think of it as "lightweight".
The other great thing, of course, is we have Bartok's recording of Contrasts. :)
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