'December 1952'  - another recording not issued on the Matchless CD "Earle Brown Chamber Music' 2003 (Matchless MRCD52).  Same personnel as November 1952.

Earle Brown: December 1952

‘Inscriptions’(2021 -) is a work-in-progress and part of ‘Inscriptions-Echo-Metamorphoses’, a larger audiovisual project scheduled for 2022.
It takes its subject matter from ancient epigrams from the Greek Anthology. A literal translation of epigram is ‘inscription’ and the texts from the archaic period of the anthology are taken from the Greek stele (grave inscriptions) – functioning literally as reflective prompts for the wayside traveller.  Here, the subject is Tettichos, killed in battle.  The text provides the basic phonetic material for the soprano to improvise.  The performers are Cristina Grifone, soprano; Dave Fowler, drums, percussion.   The text is as follows: [whisper]  Whether// you are a/// citizen //or //stranger ////coming from////  Elsewhere, ///take pity on Tettichos/// as you pass by:///// a brave man///  killed in battle, ////who there/// lost the pride ////of his youth.  [spoken quietly]// Mourn for him a while, and go on. May your fortune be  good.

Stele 1

This epigram derives from a ritual dedication:
The text is:
Queen of Black Earth Egypt, divine Isis
In Linen robes, accept my well-set offering:
Flaky sacrificial cake on the wood embers;
Two dazzling water-loving geese; nard
Crumbled around seed-seething figs; raisins
Like lizard skins; fragrant frankincense.
But most, great queen: save Damis from poverty
As you did from the sea, and a gold-horned kid is yours.

The performers are: Cristina Grifone, soprano/speaker; Joe Zeitlin cello; David Ryan, zither, lyre, percussion; Dave Fowler, drums

Rite

This text is tells of a waiting lover - stood up yet again:

He has not come.
        The lamp
Dims again and 
gutters out:
                  The flame
Within - the lust,
The longing – 
burns bright and hard
I cannot sleep.

That he would come
                 He swore
And swore again
In Love’s name:
His perjured tongue
                 spares
Man nor god

This text is sung in an Esperanto translation.  The performers are: Cristina Grifone, soprano; David Ryan, zither and lyre; Joe Zeitlin cello(s).

Li ne venis

an ancient momento mori - but as usual with these epigrams the emphasis is not with the Christian warning of excess and the futility of possessions but rather a warning to take pleasure while one can...

Dead you will lie under a yard of earth,
Far from daylight and all delighting.

Performers are: Cristina Grifone, soprano; Simon Allen, construcuted hyper-bass zither; Joe Zeitlin, cello(s)

Dead

This is a little compilation of just a few of the works in progress for the piece 'Inscriptions' it will eventually consist of many fragments that are woven together with readings/video. and a binding mis-en-scene.  
Textually, its focus is on epigrams (literally translated as ‘Inscriptions’ from the Greek); which, in themselves, provide huge insight into the development of poetry and its intertwining with memory and time: with aphoristic statements on life, reflections on the human condition, musings on loss,  documentation of desire, plays with words and concepts, but above all the trickery of time itself.  They function as a strange quotidian snapshot onto that period with all its distorted encapsulations of beauty, power, and rhetorical address. 
These feature: Cristina Grifone - Voice
                          Joe Zeitlin - 'Cello(s)
                          David Ryan - bass clarinet/zither/lyre 
                          Dave Fowler: percussion
                          Simon Allen: stringed percussion

'Inscriptions' short taster compilation

Fields and Refrains was written for guitarist William Crosby.  Its title gives a clue as to the nature of the piece itself, though neither fields nor refrains are explicitly figured as such but rather alluded to throughout the piece.  As with other solo pieces (Sanjo for example) the compositional process was envisaged as a kind of dialogical one with the soloist, with the desire to create a complex ‘expanded’ solo piece that operated more like chamber music in its interactive layering.  This is where pre-recording creates a ground for responsive interplay on the part of the soloist.  For example, the procedure was: firstly, the generation of a ‘ground score’ which consist of a number of sound events that will be shuffled, repeated and elaborated in the sound space.  The soloist is free to choose the repertoire of these given sounds from my rough indications.  From this I then create a ‘ soloistic’ score that the performer, in turn, will realize while playing back their realization of the ground score, reacting and responding to this in forming the solo part.  In this way, there is a constant tension between what might seem a mechanistic approach to sound and its opposite counterpart: that which might be deemed as a gestured, ‘felt’ or expressive in approach. This is a short extract of the full track to be released on the Aural Terrains label in June.

'Fields and Refrains' (Extract)

A piece based on Richard Brautigan's poem 'A Boat' - Cristina Grifone, voice, thumb piano; Luca Venitucci, accordion; David Ryan, piano.

Brautigan Improvisation

Ligeia was originally sketched in 2007, at the request of clarinetist Alberto Popolla at a recording session in Rome.  It was an indeterminate score, sketching (literally on the back of an envelope)  a few gestures and (free) harmonic possibilities.  I had re-read Poe’s famous short story Ligeia on the flight over to Rome and was struck by its concision of form, and evocation of strangeness.  Poe suggests even a revered personal intimacy can remain a mystery and plays on various musical analogies such as Ligeia’s low musical tone of voice or the relation of time to perceived timelessness, etc.  Over the years I’ve performed Ligeia in several versions but by 2021 the original sketch was barely readable and so I decided to re-design the score, slightly more formalized but not really musically changed at all.  Through redrawing it, it reminded me that it was really a piece that generated its own sound world each time.  A kind of piece where, rather than controlling the outcome, one sees what one gets back.  Another impetus for this little piece was a kind of homage to the sort of ‘abstract’ pieces that appeared in free jazz around 1969 – pieces by Jimmy Lyons or Tony Oxley, that have a very austere form and possibly influenced by the ‘new music’ of the day.  Here in this present recording, while not all the instrumental parts of the piece are played, it captures something of this, and is formed of a hard-edged, occasionally strident and somewhat jolting musical space.

04 Ligeia 2021

This from a set of pieces drawing on Martha Kapos' poems from 'Smile Variations'.  Performed by Cristina Grifone, voice; Paul Jackson, piano.

David Ryan: Songs

The Look ('Smile Variations' - Text: Martha Kapos)

From  a solo piano performance of extracts from 'provisional piano pieces' (2018-), miniature improvisations based on scraps and marginalia.  Performed at the Teatro Il Cantiere, a wonderful intimate little theatre in Rome. I performed with Luca Venitucci's great ensemble Al Niente in November 2023.

Teatro Cantiere - Solo piano ('Provisional Pieces')

'Being Various' 
Cristina Grifone - Voice
Paul Jackson - Piano
composition - David Ryan

Text by Martha Kapos (from 'Smile Variations')

Waking up in the huge room of herself
she is a small person struggling
inside a man
she is a small person struggling
inside a woman.
She throws off the covers
places her wide feet on the floor.
She is taking her bearings.
She becomes the voice of a path
going backwards against the words.
Like a horseshoe magnet she
stretches herself and bends
double to the opposite pole.
She sees both
loud words fan out
into an infinite
plurality of things.

Being Various ('Smile Variations' - Text: Martha Kapos)

'Philaneon' froma larger piece, 'Inscriptions' is based on a text form the 'Greek Anthology' of ancient epigrams.
                                               
Cristina Grifone: Voice                      
Maiko Kawabata: Violin                                                   
Dominic Lash: Contrabass
William Crosby: Guitar
Ian Mitchell: Bass Clarinet
Imogen Ridge: Harp
David Ryan: Music Direction and composition, clarinet, video
Mark Sanders: Percussion 

with:
Guest Director, Rocc: scenography, movement direction and coaching


UAL Performing Arts Students:
Jack Carr
Theresa Hyun
Timna Krenn

compositions: David Ryan


Video (on Vimeo): James Norton
Sound: Emanuele Costantini

Thanks to the generous support of staff and technical staff at Wimbledon College of Arts.

Wimbledon College of Arts 'Philaneon' Performance from 'Inscriptions'

A short extract from 'Rite' - part of 'Inscriptions' - Wimbledon College of Art Theatre 2023.

Wimbledon Rite Extract Performance Mixdown

This is the first of a series of exploratory rehearsals in Rome with Beatrice Miniaci - Bass Flute; Gabriele Pagliano - Contrabass; David Ryan - Bass Clarinet.  Literally we were exploring and finding a way together...

Miniaci - Pagliano - Ryan: 'Finding a way (a)'

Miniaci - Pagliano - Ryan: 'Finding a Way (b)'

This is the first of a series of exploratory rehearsals in Rome with Beatrice Miniaci - Bass Flute; Gabriele Pagliano - Contrabass; David Ryan - Bass Clarinet.

Miniaci - Pagliano - Ryan:  'Stops'

Beatrice Miniaci - Flute; David Ryan - Clarinet; Gabriele Pagliano - ContraBass........Rehearsals/Exploring...

Miniaci - Pagliano - Ryan: Rehearsal (Set 2)

Cristina Grifone: Voice
David Ryan: Bass Clarinet
Gianni Trovalusci: Flute/Bass Flute

This was part of a concert featured at Keats-Shelley House, Rome, September 2023.  It was an experiment in setting Shelley’s texts to improvised and partly composed scores.  Prometheus Unbound is a text that preoccupied Shelley over a few of years, a kind of allegory of social and political freedom, and it remains one of Shelley’s most difficult and ‘open’ pieces.  Shelley’s ‘poetic drama’ calls for a reading in the imagination – hence the reader becomes all of the mythological protagonists in the play. For this short selection of episodes from the dramatic poem, the singer/speaker becomes all those diverse characters. This is where the notation becomes evocative, resulting in the physical production and coloration of sounds/ phrases to be realized by the singer/ performer.  The emphasis is on sound – the sound and gesture of language; and radio, therefore,  is the perfect medium for this approach.  Mont Blanc is an earlier poem.

Shelley Fragments Prometheus Unbound/Mont Blanc

Recitativo (Extract 1)

'Fragment from New' – Gertrude Stein Piece (2019/2020)
This piece draws on Stein’s famous repetitions, translating them into both a vocal and percussive mantra.  This work is in-progress eventually to be presented with a new video piece by Justyna Latoch. 

Kelcy Davenport, Sally Stenton, speakers; William Crosby, guitars; Leo Oakley, violin; Joe Zeitlin, ‘cello; Dominic Lash, contrabass, Justyna Latoch, video, David Ryan, direction.

'Fragment from New' (Gertrude Stein).

This piece, in three parts, is based on three fragments from the poems of Catullus (c84-54 BCE).  The idea was to create only scraps of melody against an almost overly decorated and elaborated vocal space, pointing to the emotional and sometimes vituperative declamations of his poems.  This is the third of the three pieces.
Cristina Grifone (Voice), David Ryan (Clarinets).

Catullus Fragments

Catullus Fragments 1

'Sanjo' for double bass(es), Dominic Lash, double bass.   This piece was composed in dialogue with the performer.  In this case, the first stage was a 'number score' which was ascribed musical events, according to certain rules, by the performer and functioned as a pre-recorded 'ground'.  This realisation was sent back to me, and I responded by making a more fuller notated score in response.  This was then sent back to the bassist who played the new score with , and against, the earlier recorded ground.  Essentially it is akin to accompaniment and solo (each being doubled).
It also relates to the traditional Korean musical form of Sanjo (meaning 'scattered melodies') though more as an oblique homage rather than any 'cultural appropriation', as the piece has its own processes of formation. However it has some concrete links with the sense of 'call and response', solo and accompaniment, and (sometimes) the vocal interjection of players.  The present piece is structured around a doubling of space, whereby the solo performer becomes multiple.  This is a 5' extract of the full track to be released on the Aural Terrains label June 2022.

'Sanjo' for double bass(es)- for Dominic Lash (Extract)

A version of a piece using Leonardo Sciascia's poem 'Here and Now' (in translation by Angela Leighton from her book 'Spills', Carcanet press, 2016).  The piece creates a sound environment for the slow recitation of, and responses to,  the poem.  Kelcy Davenport, Sally Stenton (speakers); Simon Allen (percussion/waterphone); Farah Mulla (Tibetan singing bowls); David Ryan (piano); Luca Innocenti (Organ); Joe Zeitlin ('cello and 'cello arrangements).  Scascia's poem translation is used by kind permission of Angela Leighton and Carcanet Press.

Here And Now

David Ryan is a visual artist, musician and writer who is actively involved in contemporary music. Publications include ‘We Have Eyes as Well as Ears: Experimental Music and the Visual Arts’ in The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music, (Ashgate, 2009); ‘Changing the System: Indeterminacy and Politics in the 1970s’ in Christian Wolff: Changing the System, (Ashgate, 2010), and forthcoming, ‘Drawing Towards Sound: Notations, Diagrams, Drawings’ in A Companion to Contemporary Drawing Wiley-Blackwell, 2020. He has also exhibited widely with exhibitions and screenings at the Whitechapel Gallery, Flowers East London, Flowers West, California USA, Konzerthaus, Berlin; Recent exhibitions include Crossing Abstraction at Kunstlerhaus Bethianen, Berlin (2009), and the Kunsthaus and Forum Konkrete Kunst, Erfurt, Germany (2012), he curated At the Point of Gesture (2013) at the Lion and Lamb Gallery and Wimbledon Space (2015); He was included in After Image (Emerson Gallery, Berlin 2013), June Mostra, British School at Rome and Spazi Aperti, Accademia di Romana, Roma (2016). He has broadcast for Danish Radio, BBC Radio 3 (Stockhausen with Apartment House), Resonance FM and Radiophrenia at CCA Glasgow (2016).  Screenings have taken place at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire; Issue Project Space, New York; Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, Rome (2010); Darmstadt Ferienkurse for Neue Musik (2011); V22 Space, London (2012); Logos, Ghent; Qo2 in Brussels, Belgium (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art (2015), London; a screening and performance at the Teatro Arsenale, as part of the Venice Biennale (2015), AngelicA, Bologna (2016), and the British School at Rome (2017). He is performing as a trio with Beatrice Miniaci, Flutes, and Gabriele Pagliano, Bass, the Opera Aperta project, and  - when he can - the London Improviser's Orchestra.

David Ryan

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