Daily Pep-TAK 4/4/2020: mesmerizing just intonation chamber music.

1. Ellen Arkbro - Chords for Guitar
2. Harry Partch - The Rose (Partch Ensemble)
3. J.S. Bach - Ciaccona in Just Intonation (Joshua Modney)
4. Catherine Lamb - Frame (Christine Tavolacci)
5. Charles Curtis - Unfinished Song
6. Pauline Oliveros - Deep Listening Ione (Oliveros, Dempster, and Panaiotis)
7. Nicola Vicentino - Madonna il poco dolce (Johannes Keller)
8. Marc Sabat - Plainsound Duet (Jennifer Ames Alexander and Colin Alexander)
9. Yoshi Wada and Tashi Wada - Reed Modulations
10. Michael Harrison - Mureed (Del Sol Quartet)
11. Bill Daugherty - Eidos (Ekmeles with Yarn and Wire)
12. Chris Otto - Violin Octet
13. Monteverdi - Adoramus te, Christe (Exaudi)

mesmerizing just intonation chamber music - Daily Pep TAK Playlist

The Capture and Release of the Fairy (22 edo Theorbo solo)

Frame -  Catherine Lamb

“More than 20 years ago, the music critic John Rockwell described Ben Johnston in the New York Times as “one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer.” What has changed is that Johnston is now, I’d suggest, our BEST non-famous composer.” – Mark Swed, LA Times
In this exquisite chamber music recital, Ben Johnston sets the provocative texts of Rumi [the medieval mystic Sufi poet] in the pure tunings & modes of the Middle East. While THE TAVERN tells of an initiate, intoxicated with the possibilities of a new spiritual life, PARABLE offers a delightful story about a Mouse & a Frog. Rumi uses the time-honored technique of teaching by example, using the relationship between these two tiny creatures, one of the land and the other of the water, to reveal truths about the human experience.
REVISED STANDARDS – Inspired by the midcentury songbook of Billie Holiday, Johnston tells us, “In jazz improvisation, the soloist has very great freedom to play with intonation…In my just-tuned jazz, spontaneity is disciplined in a new way so that all players are creating both melodic and harmonic microtonal innovation that can vary greatly in how it affects the listener, but always innovates in both melody and harmony.”
All of these premiere recordings are performed in Just Intonation.
“Stunning” — LA Times

Ben Johnston - Parable | The Force Of Friendship

Excerpt of Josh Modney's reinterpretation of J.S. Bach's "Ciaccona" in Just Intonation, as performed by Modney on "Engage" (New Focus Recordings)

http://www.newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/josh-modney-engage/

J.S. Bach: Ciaccona (1720) with Just Intonation (excerpt)

The 10-string Hawaiian–type Adapted Guitar II and the Diamond Marimba accompany the text that came from Partch’s rejected triptych "December, 1942" for voice and re-fretted Adapted Guitar I. The mood is considerably darkened in this new settings by the haunting gliding tones of the slide guitar whose open strings are tuned to a minor Utonality and harmonized by the murmuring marimba. The falling petal from “The Rose” by Irish Bay Area poet Ella Young inspires the intoned vocal melody that also slowly descends in microtonal increments, a musical gesture that is cleverly recapitulated by the downward marimba arpeggios at the piece’s close.

4 The Rose

Ellen Arkbro - CHORDS(SUB029)
VINYL pre-order: https://ellenarkbro.bandcamp.com/album/chords

With ‘CHORDS’, the Stockholm-based musician and composer Ellen Arkbro returns to Subtext, following her acclaimed debut album ‘For Organ and Brass’.

This new longplayer sees Arkbro adopt a more minimalist approach, focusing on the immediate qualities of sound and elegantly expanding the tonal capacities of acoustic instruments using precise, subtle synthesis.

Composed of a carefully selected combination of tones, ‘CHORDS’ stretches, extends and obscures the timbral character of the instruments it is performed on.

Across both tracks, Arkbro examines the sonic materiality and harmonic quality of chords. She considers how the compositions occupy space rather than time – transposing theoretical possibilities into the phenomenal realm.

As a part of Arkbro’s systematic investigation of harmonic sound, ‘CHORDS’ proffers a divergence from conventional ways of listening. This work allows for a form of listening which goes beyond the mere reception of outer stimuli in letting the listener experience their role as active, and as embodying the sound itself. Space rather than time becomes the primary locus of listening as subtle movement of head and body reveals the inner complexities of ‘CHORDS’.

@ellenarkbro

CHORDS

Pre-order

Ellen Arkbro - CHORDS For Guitar

Charles Curtis: Performances & Recordings 1998-2018 (SLT-005)

Saltern presents its fifth release, Charles Curtis: Performances & Recordings 1998-2018, the first comprehensive collection of recordings surveying the career of renowned, American cellist Charles Curtis. Selected by Curtis and Tashi Wada from recordings spanning the past two decades, the collection offers a broad, inclusive view of Curtis's activities across the diverse worlds of music he inhabits, containing rare, unreleased recordings, and never-before-released music by Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, Éliane Radigue, Alison Knowles, and Curtis. The wide-ranging scope of this release speaks not to a musical restlessness, but to a genuine spirit of inquiry, as these areas of activity for Curtis have existed concurrently in dialogue, not simply in succession, for decades. Over two hours of music by composers and artists with whom Curtis is closely associated including Éliane Radigue, Guillaume de Machaut, Tobias Hume, Silvestro di Ganassi, Terry Jennings, Morton Feldman, Anton Webern, Olivier Messiaen, Alison Knowles, Richard Maxfield, and Curtis himself. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with liner notes by La Monte Young, Spencer Gerhardt, and Tashi Wada. Custom packaging and screen printing by Alan Sherry.

Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Charles Curtis – Unfinished Song (1998)

PARTCH is the Grammy-winning and 3-time Grammy-nominated group that specializes in the music and instruments of the iconoclastic American Maverick composer Harry Partch who, between 1930 and 1972, created one of the most amazing bodies of sensually alluring and emotionally powerful music of the 20th century. More info at www.PartchEnsemble.org

4 The Rose

PARTCH Ensemble

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