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Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue des oeuvres
Posted in Information on Apr 12, 2009 at 12:28 PM

Classement par anneé de composition

(Olivier Messiaen - works, sorting into year of composing)

1917 - La dame de Shalott, pour piano
1921 - Deux Ballades de Villon, pour chant et piano
1925 - La tristesse d'un grand ciel blanc, pour piano
1927 - Esquisse modale, pour orgue
1928 - Fugue en ré mineur, pour orchestre
1928 - Variations Écossaises, pour orgue
1928 - Le banquet eucharistique, pour orchestre
1928 - L'Hôte aimable des Âmes, pour orgue
1928 - Le banquet eucharistique, pour orchestre
1929 - Huit Préludes, pour piano *
1929 - Diptyque : Essai sur la vie terrestre et l'éternité bienheureuse, pour orgue *
1930 - Les Offrandes oubliées, méditation symphonique pour orchestre
1930 - Trois Mélodies, pour soprano et piano *
1930 - La mort du Nombre, pour soprano, ténor, violon et piano
1930 - Simple chant d'une âme, pour orchestre
1930 - La Sainte-Bohème, pour chœur mixte et orchestre
1930 - Fugue, pour le Concours de Rome
1930 - Offrande au Saint-Sacrement, pour orgue *
1930 - Prélude, pour orgue *
1931 - Le Tombeau resplendissant, pour orchestre
1931 - Le Banquet céleste, pour orgue *
1931 - La jeunesse des vieux, pour chœur et orchestre
1931 - L'Ensorceleuse, cantate pour soprano, ténor, basse et piano (ou orchestre)
1931 - Fugue, pour le Concours de Rome
1932 - Fantaisie burlesque, pour piano *
1932 - Thème et variations, pour violon et piano *
1932 - Apparition de l'Église éternelle, pour orgue *
1932 - Hymne, pour orchestre
1933 - Fantaisie, pour violon et piano
1933 - Vingt leçons de solfège moderne,
1934 - L'Ascension, deuxième version pour orgue *
1934 - Morceau de lecture à vue,
1935 - La Nativité du Seigneur, pour orgue *
1935 - Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas, pour piano *
1935 - L'Ascension, quatre méditations symphoniques *
1935 - Vocalise-Étude, pour soprano et piano
1936 - Poèmes pour Mi, pour grand soprano dramatique et piano
1937 - Poèmes pour Mi, pour grand soprano dramatique et orchestre *
1937 - O sacrum convivium, motet pour le Saint-Sacrement, pour chœur à quatre voix mixtes *
1937 - Fêtes des belles eaux, pour sextuor d'ondes Martenot *
1938 - Chants de Terre et de Ciel, pour soprano et piano *
1938 - Deux monodies en quarts de ton, pour une onde martenot seule
1939 - Les Corps glorieux, pour orgue *
1939 - Vingt leçons d'harmonie,
1940 - Quatuor pour la fin du Temps, pour violon, clarinette, violoncelle et piano *
1941 - Chœurs pour une Jeanne d'Arc, pour grand chœur et petit chœur mixtes, a cappella
1942 - Musique de scène pour un Œdipe ( Dieu est innocent ), pour une Onde Martenot seule
1943 - Visions de l'Amen, pour deux pianos *
1943 - Rondeau, pour piano *
1944 - Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine *
1944 - Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, pour piano *
1945 - Harawi, Chant d'Amour et de Mort *
1945 - Chant des Déportés, pour chœur et orchestre
1945 - Tristan et Yseult, musique de scène, pour orgue
1945 - Pièce, pour hautbois et piano
1948 - Cinq Rechants, pour douze voix mixtes a cappella *
1948 - Turangalîla-Symphonie, pour piano, ondes Martenot et orchestre *
1949 - Messe de la Pentecôte, pour orgue *
1950 - Quatre Études de rythme, pour piano *
1950 - Livre d'orgue, pour orgue *
1951 - Le Merle noir, pour flûte et piano *
1952 - Cantéyodjayâ, pour piano *
1952 - Timbres-Durées, pour bande magnétique *
1953 - Réveil des oiseaux, pour piano et orchestre *
1953 - Leçon d'harmonie,
1956 - Oiseaux exotiques, pour piano solo et ensemble instrumental *
1958 - Catalogue d'oiseaux, pour piano *
1960 - Chronochromie, pour grand orchestre *
1960 - Verset pour la Fête de la Dédicace, pour orgue
1962 - Sept Haïkaï, esquisses japonaises pour piano solo et petit orchestre *
1963 - Couleurs de la Cité Céleste, pour piano solo, orchestre à vent et percussions *
1963 - Monodie, pour orgue
1964 - Prélude, pour piano
1964 - Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum *
1969 - Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité, pour orgue *
1969 - La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ *
1972 - La Fauvette des Jardins, pour piano *
1974 - Des canyons aux étoiles, pour piano solo, cor, xylorimba, glockenspiel et orchestre *
1982 - Sigle, pour flûte solo
1983 - Saint François d'Assise, opéra en 3 actes et 8 tableaux
1984 - Le Livre du Saint Sacrement, pour orgue *
1987 - Petites Esquisses d'oiseaux, pour piano
1987 - La Ville d'en Haut, pour piano solo et petit orchestre *
1988 - Un Vitrail et des oiseaux, pour piano solo et petit orchestre *
1989 - Un Sourire, pour orchestre
1991 - Éclairs sur l'Au-Delà, pour très grand orchestre *
1991 - Pièce, pour piano et quatuor à cordes
1992 - Concert à quatre, pour flûte, hautbois, violoncelle, piano et orchestre *

* playlisted

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Mauricio Kagel
Posted in Information on Sep 21, 2008 at 9:09 PM

Mauricio Kagel, composer, born December 24 1931; died September 18 2008

Mauricio Kagel, who has died aged 76, held a unique position in music of the last half century.

Kagel's originality reflects his status as an outsider. Born in Buenos Aires, he came from an Argentine-Jewish family of leftist political views. He did not study music at university or conservatory, but privately with several teachers - none for composition, incidentally - and he studied philosophy and literature at the University of Buenos Aires, where the poet and short-story-writer Jorge Luis Borges was one of his lecturers. Kagel became a repetiteur at the famous Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and music adviser at the university, as well as being editor of cinema and photography for the journal Nueva Vision.

Film remained a practical interest after Kagel moved to Cologne in 1957 on a West German government scholarship. He lived there for the rest of his life, with frequent trips abroad as a guest professor or artist-in-residence.

By the mid-1950s Cologne was one of the great centres of avant garde musical experiment, where Stockhausen was king, but Kagel came to succeed, or replace, him as a magnet for aspiring composers at the Hochschule, and instituted a new course in music theatre.

Although Kagel had no formal education in composition, he acquired a mastery of new vocal and instrumental techniques with surprising speed. Anagrama, a large-scale piece for solo singers, speaking chorus and instrumental ensemble, was written only one year after Kagel's arrival in Cologne and remains one of the most striking and inventive pieces of its time; it may even have had an influence on Stockhausen's Momente and Berio's Laborintus II.

In spite of its innovative vocal sounds, Anagrama is "pure" music, and Kagel continued to compose - with increasing frequency - pure music throughout his life. But his whole output, which includes film as well as various forms of "music theatre" (a combination of scenic action and music) or "instrumental theatre" (where musicians take on the role of actors as they play), is, in essence, concerned with comic reflections on the decay of tradition. Irony and cinematic techniques in music had been used by Satie and Debussy long before Kagel was born, but despite the example of Dada, no composer has so systematically explored the absurd aspects, not just of classical music, but of the whole culture industry.

Kagel's creativity is not at the centre of 20th- or 21st-century music - indeed, his output is as much a commentary on the ideals and ideologies of music history as a self-conscious contribution to the canon - but that's exactly why he should be essential listening for anybody interested in new music.

For further Information see also Mauricio Kagel on youbundle

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Chaconne (Ciacona)
Posted in Information on Aug 02, 2008 at 7:23 PM

Chaconne (Ciacona)

A Chaconne is a musical form whose primary formal feature involves variation on a repeated short harmonic progression.
Originally a quick dance-song which emerged during the late 16th century in Spanish culture, possibly from the New World, the chaconne was characterized by suggestive movements and mocking texts.

The Chaconne or Passacaille basic step was composed of only three movements, however there were many more.
1) a Bound on first beat, Clockwise 1/2 turn to right, leg extended,
2) a Hop on second beat, another 1/2 turn,
3) a Bound, or Balone,
these steps were most usually started from third Position. The steps to the Chacona by the 19th. Century introduced a four beat step known as the "pas de Chacone".

By the early eighteenth century the chaconne had evolved into a slow triple meter musical form.
In actual usage in music history, the term "chaconne" has not been so clearly distinguished from passacaglia as regards the way the given piece of music is constructed, and "modern attempts to arrive at a clear distinction are arbitrary and historically unfounded." In fact, the two genres were sometimes combined in a single composition, as in the Cento partite sopra passacaglia by Girolamo Frescobaldi, and the first suite of Les Nations (1726) as well as in the Pièces de Violes (1728) by François Couperin.

Frescobaldi, who was probably the first composer to treat the chaconne and passacaglia comparatively, usually (but not always) sets the former in major key, with two compound triple-beat groups per variation, giving his chaconne a more propulsive forward motion than his passacaglia, which usually has four simple triple-beat groups per variation. Both are usually in triple meter, begin on the second beat of the bar, and have a theme of four measures (or a close multiple thereof).

One of the best known and most masterful and expressive examples of the chaconne is the final movement from the Violin Partita in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. This 256-measure chaconne takes a plaintive four-bar phrase through a continuous kaleidoscope of musical expression, in both major and minor modes.

After the baroque period, the chaconne fell into decline, though the 32 Variations in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven belong to the form.

Examples of chaconnes:

John Adams: second movement Chaconne: Body through which the dream flows from Violin Concerto (1993)
Juan de Arañes: Chacona A la vida bona
Johann Sebastian Bach: Chaconne from Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin in D minor
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber: The Joyful Mysteries: The Presentation in the Temple
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98, finale
Dietrich Buxtehude: Organ chaconne in E minor, symphonic orchestration (1937) by Carlos Chavez
Dietrich Buxtehude: Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne in C Major (BuxWV 137)
John Corigliano: Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra
Gustav Holst: Chaconne from First Suite in E-flat major for Military Band (according to one writer, technically a passacaglia, but according to others, technically a chaconne)
Henry Madin: Chaconne from Les Petits Motets
Tarquinio Merula: Ciaccona
W.A. Mozart: Idomeneo", K 367: I. Ciaccona - Allegro
Johann Pachelbel: Ciacona in F-moll
Johann Pachelbel: Ciacona in D-moll
Henry Purcell: The Fairy Queen - Act V - Chaconne - Dance for chinese men and women
Henry Purcell: Chacony for strings and continuo in G minor Z.730 (1680)
Jean-Philippe Rameau:Chaconne from Dadanus
Jean-Philippe Rameau: L'hymen - Chaconne, Scene VI from Les fêtes d'Hébé
Tomaso Antonio Vitali: Chaconne in G minor for Solo Violin (a 19th century musical hoax)
Silvius Leopold Weiss: Xacona

and here is the Playlist with all the above (and more) music:

and another one (from the "antiqua" group):

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begena - Alemu Aga
Posted in Information on Jun 07, 2008 at 9:49 PM

The begena (or bèguèna, as in French) is an Ethiopian string instrument that resembles a large lyre. According to Ethiopian tradition, Menelik I brought the instrument to Ethiopia from Israel, where David had used the begena to soothe King Saul's nerves and heal him of insomnia. Its actual origin remains in doubt, though Ethiopian manuscripts depict the instrument at the beginning of the fifteenth century A.D. (Kimberlin 1978: 13)

Known as the instrument of noblemen, monks, and the upper class and performed by both Amhara and Tigray men and women, the begena was used primarily as an accompaniment during meditation and prayer. Though commonly played in the home, it is sometimes played during festive occasions. During Lent, the instrument is most often heard on the radio. One may compose one's own texts or they may be taken from the Bible, from the Book of Proverbs, or from the Book of Qine, an anthology of proverbs and love poems. Subject matter includes the futility of life, the inevitability of death, saints, mores, morality, prayer, and praises to God. A song can last a few minutes to several hours depending on the text and the persistence of the player. Though many texts are of a religious nature, the instrument is not used in the Ethiopian Orthodox church services, even if it is seen occasionally in religious processions outside the church.

Because of the instrument's relatively sacred role in society, it is relatively difficult to find people who play the begena. Meditation and prayer are very private, personal endeavors, and hearsay suggests that the instrument is played by very few and is a dying art. However, in 1972 the Yared Music School in Addis Ababa began formal instruction in the begena, and since the new regime has given priority to the arts, the begena still survives.

Even though the begena has ten strings, only six are actually sounded by plucking. That is, the left hand plucks strings one, three, four, six, eight, and ten. The pointing finger plucks strings three and four while the other fingers are in charge of controlling one string each. The remaining strings are used for the finger rests or stops after the strings have been plucked allowing the plucked string to vibrate.

Thong buzzers are used as a method of sound amplification. Each buzzer is a U-shaped leather thong that is placed between each string and the bridge. The thong for each string is adjusted up or down so that the string, when plucked, repeatedly vibrates against the edge of the bridge, producing the characteristic buzzing sound which is more penetrating than music played without the buzzers.

Alemu Aga (b. 1950) is an Ethiopian musician and singer, a master of the bèguèna.

Born in Entotta, near Addis Ababa, Alemu became interested in the begena (a ten-stringed member of the lute family, also known as "King David's Harp") at the age of twelve, when a master of the instrument moved in next door to his family, the Aleqa Tessema Welde-Emmanuel. Aleqa Tessema began teaching at Ras Desta school, where Alemu was a pupil. As well as studying the begena at school, Alemu carried his master's instrument to and from school, and thus benefited from more of Tessema's time.

He went on to study geography at Addis Ababa University, and after graduation went to work as a geography teacher at the Yared Music School, where for seven years he also taught begena. Alemu went on to become an acknowledged master of the instrument, first recorded in 1972 by Cynthia Tse Kimberlin for a major UNESCO collection, and performing and broadcasting around the world. In 1974, however, the Derg military junta came to power in Ethiopia; their anti-religious policies also included the banning of the begena from radio broadcasts, and the closing down of the Yared School's teaching of the instrument. As a result, Alemu Aga decided to give up his teaching post in 1980, and opened a souvenir shop in Addis Ababa's Piazza district.

For a time he played only in private, but the collapse of the Derg's régime led eventually to a change in state policy, and Alemu again began to teach and perform in public.
(from Wikipedia)

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The Lark Ascending
Posted in Information on Apr 20, 2008 at 10:44 AM

The Lark Ascending

is a popular musical piece written in 1914 by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Featuring a prominent solo violin part, the composition is intended to convey the lyrical and almost eternally English beauty of the scene in which a skylark rises into the heavens above some sunny down and attains such height that it becomes barely visible to those on the ground below. The First World War halted composition, but the work was revised in 1920 and it was premièred under conductor Adrian Boult in 1921. It was dedicated to Marie Hall who gave the first performance with piano.

The Lark Ascending is the acknowledged direct inspiration for Larks' Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson (1973) an inspired brash rock-n-roll twist on Vaughan Williams's lyricism.

In both 2008 and 2007 it was voted number one in the Classic FM Hall of Fame, over Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.

The musical work was inspired by George Meredith's poem of the same name about the skylark.

The Lark Ascending
George Meredith (1828–1909)

HE rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
All intervolv’d and spreading wide,
Like water-dimples down a tide
Where ripple ripple overcurls
And eddy into eddy whirls;
A press of hurried notes that run
So fleet they scarce are more than one,
Yet changingly the trills repeat
And linger ringing while they fleet,
Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear
To her beyond the handmaid ear,
Who sits beside our inner springs,
Too often dry for this he brings,
Which seems the very jet of earth
At sight of sun, her musci’s mirth,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air
With fountain ardor, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discern’d
An ecstasy to music turn’d,
Impell’d by what his happy bill
Disperses; drinking, showering still,
Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live
Renew’d in endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he,
For all to hear and all to know
That he is joy, awake, aglow,
The tumult of the heart to hear
Through pureness filter’d crystal-clear,
And know the pleasure sprinkled bright
By simple singing of delight,
Shrill, irreflective, unrestrain’d,
Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustain’d
Without a break, without a fall,
Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,
Perennial, quavering up the chord
Like myriad dews of sunny sward
That trembling into fulness shine,
And sparkle dropping argentine;
Such wooing as the ear receives
From zephyr caught in choric leaves
Of aspens when their chattering net
Is flush’d to white with shivers wet;
And such the water-spirit’s chime
On mountain heights in morning’s prime,
Too freshly sweet to seem excess,
Too animate to need a stress;
But wider over many heads
The starry voice ascending spreads,
Awakening, as it waxes thin,
The best in us to him akin;
And every face to watch him rais’d,
Puts on the light of children prais’d,
So rich our human pleasure ripes
When sweetness on sincereness pipes,
Though nought be promis’d from the seas,
But only a soft-ruffling breeze
Sweep glittering on a still content,
Serenity in ravishment.

For singing till his heaven fills,
’T is love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labor in the town;
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe,
And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart of men shall see,
Shall feel celestially, as long
As you crave nothing save the song.
Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink:
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,
Our passion is too full in flood,
We want the key of his wild note
Of truthful in a tuneful throat,
The song seraphically free
Of taint of personality,
So pure that it salutes the suns
The voice of one for millions,
In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere,
Now names, and men still housing here,
Whose lives, by many a battle-dint
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,
Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet
For song our highest heaven to greet:
Whom heavenly singing gives us new,
Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,
From firmest base to farthest leap,
Because their love of Earth is deep,
And they are warriors in accord
With life to serve and pass reward,
So touching purest and so heard
In the brain’s reflex of yon bird;
Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,
Through self-forgetfulness divine,
In them, that song aloft maintains,
To fill the sky and thrill the plains
With showerings drawn from human stores,
As he to silence nearer soars,
Extends the world at wings and dome,
More spacious making more our home,
Till lost on his aërial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

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Aquarian Music - Hans Otte
Posted in Information on Apr 06, 2008 at 9:22 PM

Hans Otte born Hans Günther Franz Otte in Plauen, Germany (December 3, 1926 – December 25, 2007) was a German composer, pianist, radio promoter, and author of many pieces of musical theatre, sound installations, poems, drawings, and art videos. From 1959 to 1984 he served as music director for Radio Bremen. From the early 1960s onwards, Otte frequently presented contemporary experimental American composers in his Bremen radio festival pro musica nova, among them in those days completely unknown people like John Cage, David Tudor, Terry Riley, Lamonte Young a.m.o. Since 1959 Otte lived and worked in Bremen, Germany. His catalogue of works contains more than 100 works.

Hans Otte had studied in Germany, Italy, and at Yale University in the United States. His teachers have included the composer Paul Hindemith and the pianist Walter Gieseking.

Some of Otte's works, especially his extended suites for solo piano, are characterized by very minimal means but are nevertheless quite subtle and sophisticated in their architecture and expression. Das Buch der Klänge (The Book of Sounds, 1979-82) and Stundenbuch (Book of Hours, 1991-98) are his best known works in this vein, and Otte often performed them himself. His last public recital was given in Amsterdam in 1999. Recordings of these works, with Otte as performer, are available on CD.

In his works, Otte draws significantly on European and Asian spirituality, integrating various prayers into the fabric of the music. Although some have categorized him as a "new age" composer, this is an inaccurate characterization.

In 1991 his work "KlangHaus" became a permanent interactive sound installation in the Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen in Bremen, Germany.

Pianist, composer and sound artist Hans Otte is still undervalued in Europe, and the Anglo-American cultural scene just starts to notice him, as Ingo Ahmels states in his bilingual study »Hans Otte – Klang der Klaenge/Sound of Sounds« (book+dvd+cd, Schott, ISBN: 978-3-7957-0586-2). Dr. Ahmels' study of his biography and artistic work highlights Otte’s view of life and his aesthetical orientation, providing the fundamentals for an adequate reception.

At the centre of the book are the solo piano cycles »Das Buch der Klänge« (The Book of Sounds, 1979-82) and »Stundenbuch« (Hours Book, 1991-98) as well as the related sound installations »Atemobjekt« (Breath Object, 1970) and »NamenKlang« (NameSound, 1995).

In addition, the publication includes digital media containing sound examples and excerpts from the Otte Media Pool (OMP), and for the first time the authorized catalog of works (Otte Werkverzeichnis, or OWV).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For more music and information please visit the "Hans Otte Group"

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