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Stockhausen (Pole), Berio (Naturale), Jonathan Harvey, etc.

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Jerry Kohl

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Nov 8, 2009, 3:24:33 PM11/8/09
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The concert discussed here a few weeks ago, featuring amongst other
things Stockhausen's Poles for Two played on laptops, supplies part of
next Saturday's (14 November) Hear & Now programme on BBC Radio 3,
starting unusually early at 22:15, and running for 105 minutes.
Robert Worby is the presenter. It should be available for on-line
listening for seven days following the broadcast. Some details are
found here:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntb53>

--
Jerry Kohl <jerom...@comcast.net>
"Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal."


Paul Dirmeikis

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Nov 9, 2009, 4:06:10 AM11/9/09
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On 8 nov, 21:24, Jerry Kohl <jeromek...@comcast.net> wrote:
> The concert discussed here a few weeks ago, featuring amongst other
> things Stockhausen's Poles for Two played on laptops, supplies part of
> next Saturday's (14 November) Hear & Now programme on BBC Radio 3,
> starting unusually early at �22:15, and running for 105 minutes.
> Robert Worby is the presenter. It should be available for on-line
> listening for seven days following the broadcast. Some details are
> found here:
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntb53>
>
> --
> Jerry Kohl <jeromek...@comcast.net>
> "L�gp�rn�s haj�m tele van angoln�kkal."

Thank you Jerry for this information. I will all the same be looking
forward to listening to Jonathan Harvey's piece.
Unfortunately I think the BBC will have some issue broadcasting the 3D
film which is part of Claudia Molitor's world premi�re... :)

Best regards.
Paul
www.dirmeikis.org

Mark Stratford

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Nov 9, 2009, 6:37:29 AM11/9/09
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and in the advert they made it plural !

>Stockhausen: Poles for 2<

Jerry Kohl

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Nov 9, 2009, 12:12:21 PM11/9/09
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On Nov 9, 3:37 am, Mark Stratford <mark_stratfor...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

> and in the advert  they made it plural !
>
>
>
> >Stockhausen: Poles for 2<

Correction: in the advert they made it *singular*. Robert knows
better, so I presume this must have been the work of some dim-bulb
copy editor. German "Pole" is plural, the singular being "Pol" (unless
of course we are speaking of Polish citizen).

--
Jerry Kohl

Jerry Kohl

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Nov 9, 2009, 12:16:19 PM11/9/09
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However, they do say on the web page "If you have a pair of 3D specs
you can view Claudia's video below in 3D." It does not appear that the
video has yet been uplinked, though.

Jerry Kohl <jeromek...@comcast.net>

Nigel Curtis

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Nov 16, 2009, 4:55:32 AM11/16/09
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so did any of you catch the KhS POLE broadcast ?

Jerry Kohl

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Nov 16, 2009, 2:39:56 PM11/16/09
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On Nov 16, 1:55 am, Nigel Curtis <cn_cur...@runbox.com> wrote:
> so did any of you catch the KhS POLE broadcast ?

I did, yes. And of course it can still be heard for the rest of the
week. What did you think of it, Nigel?

--
Jerry Kohl

Paul Dirmeikis

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Nov 17, 2009, 3:37:15 AM11/17/09
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In my opinion, this performance of Pole fur 2 was less musical (or
let's say musically inventive) than noisy (and God knows how much I
can appreciate some noises).
The only reference I have is the fantastic E�tv�s/Boj� recording. What
is interesting for me in this work (and in the artistic/spiritual idea
which subtends this composition), or in Kurzwellen or Spiral, is to
"follow", as far as I can, the imitations/transformations of the
initial foreign sound material, and be able to recognize which sound
parameter the performers are working on.
I must admit (but I listened to the BBC performance only twice) that
it was very hard for me to "play" to such followings and recognizings
here. The process of the work is unrecognizable (except for the short
part based on a rap segment). Maybe is it due to the fact that the
performers did not play an instrument (I think different timbres can
help the listener to perceive the transformations) but simply, as far
as I understood what they did, transform the sounds directly through
their laptop?
I also admit that I am addicted for 30 years to the "juicy" sounds of
the electrochord and electronium, and I missed the wonderful textures
and the quasi sensuality of their sounds while listening to this
very... let's say "digital" BBC performance...

Paul
www.dirmeikis.org

Mark Stratford

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Nov 17, 2009, 4:53:45 AM11/17/09
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>>transform the sounds directly through their laptop? >>

The two guys on stage could have been playing cards or writing up
shopping lists behind their laptops that night. I never had a clue
what they were up to. Yes, I agree it's surely better with an
instrumental pair.

BTW: more KhS in London this weekend: SOLO for flute (and assistants)
in Shoreditch.


mark

Billeke

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Nov 29, 2009, 12:25:51 PM11/29/09
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Has anyone downloaded this concert? I did not manage, because the BBC
Radio site changed the configuration of the iPlayer and I had to
upgrade the HiDownload.
Although "Pole" is played with computers, I want to know this version
because I think that in the future Stockhausen intuitive music will be
played with other instruments. Otherwise, the recordings supervised by
Stockhausen will become relics. It's like play in piano the works that
Bach wrote for harpsichord. What do you think of this?

Anyway, I leave the instructions for download audio broadcasts from
the BBC website:

http://www.hidownload.com/download-bbc-iplayer-radio.htm

Jerry Kohl

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Dec 1, 2009, 2:27:14 AM12/1/09
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On Nov 29, 9:25 am, Billeke <franciscobill...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Has anyone downloaded this concert? I did not manage, because the BBC
> Radio site changed the configuration of the iPlayer and I had to
> upgrade the HiDownload.
> Although "Pole" is played with computers, I want to know this version
> because I think that in the future Stockhausen intuitive music will be
> played with other instruments. Otherwise, the recordings supervised by
> Stockhausen will become relics. It's like play in piano the works that
> Bach wrote for harpsichord. What do you think of this?

Well, your analogy to Bach is slightly comical in light of the fact
that his harpsichord works, once almost universally played on the
piano, have for over half a century been increasingly performed on the
harpsichord again. On the other hand, Stockhausen's view (by 1995) was
that the piano was being rapidly replaced by the synthesizer--which is
why his Klavierstücke after no. XIV are for that instrument. I haven't
yet heard the Goldberg Variations or the Italian Concerto performed on
the synthesizer, but I do not expect this to become the norm anytime
very soon, personally.

I do believe, on the other hand, that you are correct about the future
of performances of Stockhausen's intuitive music. In fact, the history
of the performance practice of these pieces has exhibited a great
diversity in scoring. However, Pole is not an example of "intuitive
music", but rather one of "process composition". What I find so
gratifying about performances of the process pieces (Prozession,
Kurzwellen, Spiral, and Pole, at least) is their resurgence. For
decades, they were scarcely performed at all, and just in the last two
years, they are cropping up all over the place. And the same thing
about instrumentation applies here. Some performances have adhered
closely to the Stockhausen Ensemble's instrumentarium of the late
1960s and early 1970s (e.g., the Ensemble Modern's performances of
Prozession), while others have been more adventurous (the vocal
version of Pole done last year in Germany, for example).

Whether the instrumentation is similar or wildly different, however,
it does seem to me that there are principles of construction and
performance that underlie any version (just as there are for
performing Bach's Goldberg Variations by, say, a brass quintet). The
process pieces involve a three-stage succession of (1) finding the
material for a segment, (2) imitating that material, (3) transforming
the material. (Prozession is a possible exception to the first
criterion.) I fail to hear even a hint of this succession in the
recent laptop version of Pole, where the material simply evolves
continuously (Paul has already observed this problem). In addition,
it is almost never possible to distinguish which of the two parts is
which, since sampled sounds are sampled sounds, whether played back on
laptop serial-number xxxxxyz or serial-number xxxxxzy. Until and
unless the players choose software/hardware that gives each computer a
distinctive sound (as, for example, a viola can be instantly
distinguished from a tamtam or a piano), this will continue to be a
serious problem for such performances (Expo, with its three parts, is
even more of a problem, but remains so far the one piece of this set
that has not been revived).

--
Jerry Kohl <jerom...@comcast.net>

Joachim Pense

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Dec 1, 2009, 12:44:53 PM12/1/09
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Jerry Kohl (in rec.music.classical.contemporary):

> why his Klavierstücke after no. XIV are for that instrument. I haven't
> yet heard the Goldberg Variations or the Italian Concerto performed on
> the synthesizer, but I do not expect this to become the norm anytime
> very soon, personally.

Wanda Landowska's version of the Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord
reminds me a lot of synthesizer versions. (What were the Bach pieces that
Walter Carlos played on synthesizer?)

> "process composition". What I find so
> gratifying about performances of the process pieces (Prozession,
> Kurzwellen, Spiral, and Pole, at least) is their resurgence. For
> decades, they were scarcely performed at all, and just in the last two
> years, they are cropping up all over the place.

What are other composers of process music? Globokar comes to my mind. Did
Barlow ever wrote such a piece? (I heard him mention that he had had the
idea of writing for Classical Indian players, but abandoned because he
found them too conservative to agree playing that kind of music).

> Expo

A dream: A rich guy builds a new Osaka pavillon.

Joachim

Mark Stratford

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Dec 2, 2009, 8:54:55 AM12/2/09
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> A dream: A rich guy builds a new Osaka pavillon.
> Joachim

In a library, I once saw the official guidebook and some reviews for
entire Osaka 70 Expo, for which KhS was at German Pavillion of course.
The whole event must have knocked people sideways. There was some moon-
rock - Apollo IX having only been the year before - which got the
punters excited and loads of whacky things by the Soviet delegration.

More recent Expos have looked very thin in comparison.

mark stratford

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