{"title":"Special Offer 2","description":"\u003cp\u003ePrevious CDs by Frank Denyer, Magnus Granberg \/ Skogen and Timothy McCormack at sale prices  (£6 for single CD, £10 for double CD)\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"music-for-shakuhachi-frank-denyer","title":"Frank Denyer","description":"\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C30\"\u003e1.   \u003cstrong\u003eOn, on - it must be so\u003c\/strong\u003e  (1977-78)           8:31\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C30\"\u003e2.   \u003cstrong\u003eQuite White\u003c\/strong\u003e  (1978)                                 7:37\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C30\"\u003e3.  \u003cstrong\u003e Wheat\u003c\/strong\u003e  (1977-81)                                     9:30\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C30\"\u003e4.   \u003cstrong\u003eUnnamed\u003c\/strong\u003e  (1997)                                   45:28\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C25\"\u003eplayed by\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C26\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C25\"\u003eYoshikazu Iwamoto\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C26\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e-\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C25\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C27\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C28\"\u003ewith Paul Hiley \u0026amp; Frank Denyer  (percussion)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/FD_portrait_Darmstadt_1990081_f0f74b80-0015-42d7-9378-15fb26cac7fa_480x480.jpg?v=1751897903\"\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C29\"\u003eFrom the sleevenotes by Bob Gilmour\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C29\"\u003e\"The four works on this CD are the fruits of a musical collaboration that spans a quarter of a century. Frank Denyer and Yoshikazu Iwamoto met at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1974, where the former was a doctoral student in ethno-musicology and the latter artist-in-residence in the World Music programme.  Whereas initially it was Denyer's interest in traditional Japanese music that brought them together, the enduring legacy of their friendship is a folio of new compositions for shakuhachi that run like a vein through Denyer's output and collectively form a body of work unique in contemporary music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C29\"\u003e[.....]  The idea of a western composer writing for shakuhachi was not an entirely new idea in the 1970's, but precedents were few and far between. And after World War II a few Japanese composers wrote music for shakuhachi, so the idea of integration of shakuhachi into the western instrumentarium began to take hold (with even an occasional rock band using the instrument). Denyer, however, was not interested in east-west synthesis. The first works he produced for the instrument \u003cstrong\u003e(On, on - it must be so\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eWheat) \u003c\/strong\u003ewere essentially solo works with accompanying parts for percussion.  They are very different from the traditional Japanese repertoire and manner of playing, and yet far also from the concerns of contemporary western composers of the time. Rathervthan being exercises in cultural fusion they are musical spaces not yet identified on any map.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C29\"\u003e[....]  In the mid-1990s Denyer's music entered a new phase, which took the form of an intense concentration on extremely quiet sounds, sounds so soft and delicate that they seem in danger of disappearing altogether, of being brutally nudged out of existence. This new sound world only emerges fully in \u003cstrong\u003eUnnamed \u003c\/strong\u003efor solo shakuhachi, completed in October 1997. At 45 minutes it is both Denyer's longest composition to date and one of his richest and most enigmatic....\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/FD_portrait_Maria_Marquise_1998_480x480.jpg?v=1751899365\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C29\"\u003eReviews\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“This record is all about a friendship between Frank Denyer, for years a teacher at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, and shakuhachi master Yoshikazu Iwamoto, who also taught at Dartington in the 1980’s.  The two first met on an ethnomusicology course at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where they played Japanese music together.  Already interested in flute making and microtonal tunings, Denyer wrote a series of demanding compositions for Iwamoto over the next 20 years.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eOn, On – It Must Be So\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e from 1977 is, as the title suggests, driven and dynamic.  The shakuhachi’s agile gymnastics are egged on by castanets and bass drum.  The music sounds tough to play, and there’s a lurking sense of the performer leaping through hoops.  By contrast\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eQuite White\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a solo built from serene, swooping glissandos.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eWheat\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e is a suite of six short pieces: Iwamoto’s shifting tone colours and ambiguous pitches are complemented by delicate tapping on stones, bamboo slit drums and an artillery shell.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eWhile these three compositions have already been heard on the 1984 album\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eWheat\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e, the reason\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eMusic for Shakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e has been so keenly awaited is the 45 minute monster\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnnamed\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e, a piece with legendary status among shakuhachi players, which Iwamoto recorded in 1999 and has never been released.  Iwamoto retired from playing after a serious illness several years ago, so we are lucky he recorded this when he did.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnnamed\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e may be a pianissimo epic, but it’s strongly structured and sustains the interest.   Broadly we are in the territory of Morton Feldman’s second string quartet, but Denyer patiently explores an extraordinary range of timbral colours, from quavering in-breaths to gasps of sobbing notes.  Iwamoto plays with quite magical delicacy.  Many of these notes are so spectral that a hypnotic aura descends like a veil, only to be shoved aside by vocal cries or monk-like growls.   Always keen to build from scratch on uncharted land, Denyer constructs an unusual soundworld here – though some improvisors have also ventured into this territory recently via a different door.  Iwamoto dedicated himself wholeheartedly to realising Denyer’s challenges, and this record is a crucial part of his testament.”       \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eClive Bell\u003c\/strong\u003e  -\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eThe Wire\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C19\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“While the shakuhachi is a notoriously difficult instrument to play, its tonal colors and mysterious sonic density have drawn interest from Western composers as well as improvisers like Ned Rothenberg, Philip Gelb, Clive Bell, Steve Cohn, and Richard Teitelbaum. This release, on the new label Another Timbre, presents music that composer Frank Denyer wrote for the instrument of the course of two decades. The British composer had been working on the intersection of aleatory strategies, the use of exotic and homemade instruments, and composition during the late ’60s before heading to Wesleyan University. It was there that he met Japanese shakuhachi master Yoshikazu Iwamoto and began to write pieces for the instrument. (Iwamoto  was part of the fantastic trio along with Eddie Prevost and John Tilbury captured on the CD\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eSuch\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eThe first three pieces on this disc are from the late ’70s and grapple with the formal extensions of the shakuhachi. Two look at the interactions between the breathy woodiness of  Iwamoto’s playing with percussion. The six short episodes of the piece “Wheat” are particularly engrossing as the timbres of the clack of stones, tuned sound of bamboo slit  drum, and the metallic resonance of struck steel plates are contrasted with the sighing microtonalities of the shakuhachi. The centerpiece of the release is the more recent ”Unnamed” for solo shakuhachi. This stunning piece is a study in subtlety, traversing the dynamic range of quiet to barely audible.   But it is in these gradations that the music finds its structure. Here are calibrations of dynamics and sonic densities; pure tone, pure breath and vocalizations; high overtones and dark low notes. Iwamoto traverses the graphic score, extending the framework of intervallic microtones and contrasting shadings into a piece of dramatic intensity. While outside of the constructs of most of what is covered in this magazine, this one will certainly repay concentrated listening.”                                                                          \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael Rosenstein\u003c\/strong\u003e –\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eCadence\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“Frank Denyer is a very fine composer (and so very little known!) who whilst writing acoustic music invests it with an enormous amount of life, of chance and of ‘clinamen’ through the use of unusual modal scales, silences, extreme nuances and the use of unconventional instruments.  The history of these pieces begins when Denyer underwent a compositional crisis after hearing a shakuhachi record whilst at the Wesleyan University.  There he met Yoshikazu Iwamoto, the virtuosi shakuhachi player, with whom he began to create the marvellous works on this disc.  Twenty years separate\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eOn, on, it must be so\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003efrom\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnnamed  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e(the highpoint of this unique collaboration).   There is a perfect correlation between the writing and the playing, based round a pentatonic scale whose notes are microtonally shifted by a combination of embouchure, breathing and fingering.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eThe first piece\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eOn, on it must be so\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e(1977) is accompanied by castanets and bass drum and retains a rather classical phrasing, its expressive pointillism still relating to western criteria.  But with\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eQuite White (1978)  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003ethe results of the collaboration with Iwamoto begin to be heard.  The tempo slows, the inflections tend towards electric silences, the glissandos and held notes are played in a way that gives a truly new twist to the melody as Denyer envisaged it.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eWheat\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e(1977-81) takes up and concludes the working out of this first salvo of pieces.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eAnd then\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnnamed\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e(1997) twenty years later....  John Cage tells us that in India aesthetic emotion (the ‘rasa’) is aroused through one or two simultaneous states from an ensemble of eight permanent emotions.  These eight emotions can be eclipsed by a ninth, which subsumes all the others and is called Tranquility.  The superb 45 minutes of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnnamed\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003edo precisely this; it is a hymn to tranquility, an aural  ataraxy which brings us to the power of serenity.  Iwamoto can snatch from the shakuhachi’s column of air incredible pianissimo nuances and hold them, or make them pulse, clearly or grainily, with all kinds of inflections.  It is magnificently assured and leads us to the edges of a world of true equanimity, with a perspective of such enormity that a million years seems like nothing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eThe smallness of Denyer’s discography, and the rare beauty of these pieces for shakuhachi means that this disc is truly significant.  It is like no other, and allows us to hear a work which has evolved over 30 years.  Finally it gives us a tranquility and a restorative enjoyment that is ultimately very rare. “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e                                                                              -    \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBoris Wlassoff\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003e Revue et Corrigée\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“This CD is a landmark of contemporary works for the Japanese end-blown notched oblique bamboo flute, the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e, written by the British composer Frank Denyer and played by I\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C20\"\u003ewamoto Y\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eoshikazu.  The\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis one of the most successful non-Western instruments to enter the world of new classical or avant-garde music in recent years.  The CD comprises four compositions, written between 1977 and 1997, and through them the listener can follow how Denyer ventures ever deeper into the possibilities of the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eand utilises to the maximum Iwamoto’s impressive playing skills.  More than most composers, Denyer creates his own unique sound world. His music here sounds completely unlike traditional\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emusic, the so-called\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003ehonkyoku\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eplayed by the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003ekomusô\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emonks of the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism, nor does it fit any particular genre in contemporary music. Rather, it constitutes a distinctive musical world, perfectly rendered by Iwamoto’s otherworldly playing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eDenyer and Iwamoto met in the 1970s at Wesleyan University (USA), where Iwamoto was artist in residence in the World Music programme and Denyer a doctoral student in ethnomusicology.  Denyer is also a\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003ekoto\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(Japanese zither) player and has a thriving career as a pianist, alongside his professorship in composition at Dartington University (UK).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eDenyer’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ecompositions are very difficult to play, requiring almost inhuman control of this already very difficult instrument. The player is forced to create new techniques in order to play the material as written. Denyer’s deep engagement in Indian music seems to have influenced his rhythmic aesthetics, providing his compositions with a complexity in sharp contrast to traditional\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emusic, which calls for a free interpretation of time and phrasing.  And yet Denyer’s compositions for\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esuit the instrument very well; the difficult writing is not due to a lack of knowledge of the instrument  – Denyer just writes difficult music.  In fact, the careful listener soon discovers the consideration the composer has taken to remain true to the nature of the instrument while at the same time challenging it.  Denyer’s dynamics markings and his writing require a player of the calibre of Iwamoto, who fearlessly accepted the challenge and dedicated a large part of his performing life to deciphering Denyer’s music.  This CD is thus the fruit of an intense and unique musical friendship and collaboration between composer and player.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eThe first four minutes of “On, on – it must be so” (1977-8) are in a tempo and density that takes the breath away from even a listener who plays the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e.  The melody line, accompanied by castanets and bass drum, moves restlessly on to the next finger-twisting challenge.  After a stroke of a metallic percussion instrument, the percussion becomes silent and the piece slows down and enters a realm of beautiful serenity before ending as energetically as it began.  Iwamoto’s dexterous rendition of the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eportamento\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ealone makes this piece impressive.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“Quite White” (1978) is characterised by restrained dynamics at the top of the range of a\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e. What most strikes the listener is Iwamoto’s skill in playing\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003epianissimo\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ein registers where the instrument, in the hands of most players, can only produce notes in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eforte\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e.  Together Denyer and Iwamoto are exploring new possibilities of timbre and expression on the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e.  The tempo of “Quite White” is slow, although Denyer has expressed his reluctance of writing slow pieces for the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eas most of its traditional music is slow.  However, in “Quite White” Denyer again shows his mastery in creating his own music.  The music is as elusively transparent as water and, at the same time, as solid as a rock.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“Wheat” (1977-81) consists of six pieces, all of very different character.  ‘Instruments’ such as stones, bamboo slit drum, sandpaper blocks and various steel plates employed as gongs all accompany the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e.   Here, Denyer explores new and surprising possibilities of tempo and intonation for this instrument, and Iwamoto moves with dexterity through these novel melodic lines.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e“Unnamed” (1997) is a celebration of restrained\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003epianissimo\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eplaying and microtones.  Denyer has notated the score in several colours to differentiate the conflicting scales, so that the player knows which scale is being played. Although Iwamoto has written on his systematic approach to playing microtones on the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e, he does not seem to have anchored his system sufficiently in his students before abruptly retiring from\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eplaying – a great loss to future\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eplayers of new music.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eAlthough the CD was released ten years after the last piece “Unnamed” was written, the musical fruits of the collaboration between Denyer and Iwamoto are as cutting edge today as they were at the time the pieces were written and performed.   No performer today can really match Iwamoto in his dedication to playing music so extremely challenging to the player’s rhythmic precision, dynamics and technical skills.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eThis CD is a testimony to a collaboration between composer and performer that took\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eplaying to a new level.  It is also an important milestone in the history of the instrument and an affirmation of the role it can play in genres outside its own tradition.  The popularity of the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis growing rapidly outside Japan.  Players throughout the world, enchanted by its unique and haunting timbre, are introducing it in new genres and inventing new playing techniques.  This CD is a living monument to\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emusic without roots in any particular tradition. It demonstrates just how much an instrument of the world\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003ethe\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eshakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehas become.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKiku Day\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eEthnomusicology Forum\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51400440447290,"sku":"at03","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at03FrankDenyershakuhachi.jpg?v=1749117583"},{"product_id":"whispers-frank-denyer","title":"Frank Denyer","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e1 - 17   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhispers\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e(2010)        20:38\u003cbr\u003eFrank Denyer (voice \u0026amp; accessory instruments)  Elisabeth Smalt (offstage violin)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e18   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e(2008)              11:19\u003cbr\u003eKiku Day (shakuhaci, voice, small percussion)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e19   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRiverine Delusions\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e(2007)                         8:42\u003cbr\u003eThe Barton Workshop  -  Jos Zwaanenburg (bass flute),\u003cbr\u003eJohn Anderson (bass clarinet),  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eJames Fulkerson (bass trombone),   \u003cbr\u003eMarieke Keser (muted violin),\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e  Anne Magda de Geus (muted cello),\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eFrank Denyer (percussion),  Jamie Swale  (bass drum)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e20   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTwo Voices with Axe\u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e(2008)            14:01\u003cbr\u003eFrank Denyer \u0026amp; Juliet Fraser (voices),  Elisabeth Smalt (muted viola), \u003cbr\u003eBenjamin Gilmore (muted violin),  Don Calderone (muted double bass), \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eJos Zwaanenburg (flute),  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003ePepe Garcia Rodriguez (percussion), \u003cbr\u003eBob Gilmore (axe),  Jamie Man (conductor)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e21   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Woman Singing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e(2009)         11:54\u003cbr\u003eJuliet Fraser (voice)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/denyer_some_sounds_are_gates_image_2.jpg?v=1751741290\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eSleevenotes by Bob Gilmore\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e‘Whispers’ was co-produced by Bob Gilmore, who sadly died before the disc was released. The CD is dedicated to Bob’s memory. Bob was a longstanding champion of Frank Denyer’s music, and wrote the notes both for this CD and for the previous Another Timbre release of Denyer’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.anothertimbre.com\/denyershakuhachi.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eMusic for Shakuhachi \u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003ewhich you can read \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.anothertimbre.com\/denyershakuhachi.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.anothertimbre.com\/denyershakuhachi.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e.\u003c\/a\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eIn 2014 Bob also created an audio documentary about Denyer’s music - one of his excellent series of programmes entitled \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eTentative Affinities\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e, which you can listen to on his website \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bobgilmore.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ehere.\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eHere are Bob’s sleevenotes for the ‘Whispers’ CD:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e“The experience of listening to Frank Denyer’s music is extraordinary, quite distinct from other aspects of our contemporary musical lives. His music manifests an exquisite sensitivity to sound, often unusual or fragile sounds; his compositions are more concerned with what can be heard than with an interest in systems, or drama, or “ideas”. And while these sounds sometimes seem to embody a covert narrative of sorts, as though a story is hiding, waiting to be told, any such narratives are never made explicit. This leaves the listener free to concentrate on the highly original melodic lines, the harmonies and the unique tone colours of Denyer’s work, while speculating, if desired, about possible scenarios that may lie behind. This disc, the eighth devoted entirely to his music, collects three solo and two ensemble pieces, and forms a portrait of his recent work, from the years 2007-10.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eWhispers,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003efor solo voice with ancillary instruments and offstage muted violin, marks a radical (and, so far, a one-off) change in Denyer’s working methods. Whereas his pieces generally emerge from a long gestation period, this one arrived suddenly; he began by writing down a few phrases one morning, not thinking in terms of longer spans. About five of its movements were composed in this way, on the day he began work. It is the first piece of his to be a mosaic of short movements, some very short indeed. Denyer found that the gaps between the individual movements needed to be very exact, some of them quite long, so by trial and error he determined a series of lengths which are specified in the final score. Like the earlier\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eRiverine Delusions,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003ebut in a very different way, this piece led him to think of time very differently than in his earlier music. The piece was not specifically intended for his own voice, but Denyer’s performance here offers a marvellous sense of immediacy, as though the pieces are coming into existence as we listen. The very quiet, fragmentary music of an offstage muted violin is heard unexpectedly in piece fourteen, as though briefly opening up the performance space to a world outside.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eis the second in a set of pieces intended for solo female performer. In 2004 Denyer composed a solo work for the Dutch viola player Elisabeth Smalt entitled\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eWoman, Viola and Crow\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e, in which the performer also has to sing, shake a set of rattles worn on her back, make footsteps of a quite specific timbre, and imitate (vocally) the call of a crow. Five years later, responding to a request from shakuhachi player Kiku Day, he wrote the second of what would become a set of four works with a woman performer in mind. Part of the stimulus was that Day played the jinashi shakuhachi, the original shakuhachi associated with mendicant Buddhist priests, made without any lacquer on the inside, and which women were traditionally forbidden from playing. He especially loved the very soft notes on the instrument, similar in quality to the human voice, and so the player also sings and, in addition, makes percussive taps with a thimble on the body of the instrument. In the context of Denyer’s output, this marks the drawing of a line after the many compositions he wrote for the shakuhachi master Yoshikazu Iwamoto in the decades up to 1999 (four of them collected on Another Timbre at03):\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003etakes a new approach to an instrument that has featured extensively in Denyer’s work.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eRiverine Delusions\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis the earliest of the pieces recorded here, and was the last piece Denyer composed for the Amsterdam-based ensemble The Barton Workshop (with which he had performed, as pianist, for more than fifteen years) before the ensemble’s demise. But the work is less an act of closure than of new beginnings. A more flexible attitude to time is one aspect of this; atypically for Denyer, the score includes a few passages of unsynchronised material. So too is the striving for a more linear continuity, for ever-longer spans of music. The piece began life as a trio for flute, clarinet and trombone, but Denyer found it unsatisfactory in that form, so he rewrote it, adding violin and cello (both muted) and percussion. The work, the composer says, contains “some of the subtlest things I’ve done”: one example is the quiet, unison microtonal melody on bass flute and bass clarinet, so accurately played here that it seems like only one instrument. Like a river, perhaps, the piece has no clear beginning and end, as though a passing fragment of a more continuous music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eThe ensemble piece\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eTwo Voices with Axe\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003ecalls for three different types of sound source: two voices (female and male), an ensemble of five instrumentalists, and an eighth performer who slices into wood with a large axe. While these three elements are sonically distinct, the piece finds all manner of connections and dialogues between them. Quite unlike the music that surrounds it, the axe is a loud and even a violent presence. No two sounds produced by the interaction of axe blade and wood will ever be the same, hence yielding a range of timbral unpredictability. The other percussion, in contrast, while occasionally echoing the axe with gentle knocking sounds, is wholly different in function and sonority. The vocal writing, by extending the female voice downwards and the male voice upwards, makes them at times indistinguishable, so that it is not always clear which singer is producing any given sound. But just as significant as its extraordinary timbral world is the melodic nature of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eTwo Voices with Axe\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e; the concern to make long melodic lines has been a recurrent feature of Denyer’s work for over four decades.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eThe closing work,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eA Woman Singing,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eis the fourth in Denyer’s series of works for female performer. Here the singer must strive for what he calls a “painfully intimate tone of voice”, almost as though she were singing to herself. Heard in this way, the work is a stream of consciousness in which the very gentle sounds - as though the performer were engaged in another task while softly singing - are occasionally interrupted by words, like fragments of an inner monologue. In concert, the piece would at times hover on the threshold of audibility. The special intimacy afforded by CD, where we as listeners can feel very close to the sounds, gives us privileged access to the very special tones of voice that characterise Denyer’s remarkable output.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eBob Gilmore, August 2014\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/FD_portrait_May_08_cd806eb4-2474-4f03-8380-4e8d506082d8_480x480.jpg?v=1751741407\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eInterview with Frank Denyer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eAll of your music has been personal and idiosyncratic, but \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eWhispers\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e seems to represent a further turn in this direction. Listening to the title piece in particular feels almost like an invasion of privacy, as though we're hearing an old man humming and gently singing to himself in the corner of his front room. It doesn't feel like a musical performance at all. Can you tell us how the piece emerged, and whether you see it in these terms?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C19\"\u003eWhispers\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003estarted when I was asked to write a piece that would fit into a traditional classical concert programme. This was an unusual request considering the nature of my work, but I wondered if I could respond in some way. I stared to imagine a classical concert but with another kind of music arising from time to time, not from the stage, but from somewhere else in the auditorium, the sound of someone (not necessarily old) singing very softly to themselves.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe audience would initially dismiss it as extraneous, as ‘not music’, and some would hope that the issue would be quickly dealt with, but I fondly imagined that eventually they would see that this too was music, indeed a refined and delicate music that perhaps deserved their attention. Later, when I actually got down to work, it quickly became clear that the musical effectiveness of each tiny piece was dependent on the precise sequence and the length of the silences between them. So these fragmentary miniatures coalesced as a single whole and consequently my initial idea of interspersing different fragments into another kind of musical event slowly faded. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eIn much of my music I have used offstage instruments, and\/or voices, to suggest worlds beyond the confines of the concert hall. At rare moments these sounds quietly seep into the hall, revealing themselves to have a secret resonance with the music’s hidden core.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eWhen I was a young ethnomusicologist in East Africa working with the Plains Pokot, I was interested to discover that the more potent the song the softer it was sung, and very significant texts, such as those of the cattle songs composed by each individual adult male, were sung in a whisper. The songs used by itinerant healers to curse disease were an even more extreme example. I remember recording a sequence of them sung by a female healer where the rapt audience of about a hundred could barely hear anything because it was so very soft.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThere are many and various circumstances when we all find it natural to sing or intone softly in an under-voice, almost to ourselves. Anyone familiar with patients in deep trauma will be familiar with this, as will anyone watching children grow up. The emotional connotations when we revert to this secret under-voice are extremely varied and diverse. These are mysterious areas which interest me as a composer, and as someone who seeks a better understanding of the very diverse roles music has in human life.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eI love the way that the next piece – \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e– flows on seamlessly from \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eWhispers \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eas if it’s a continuation of the same piece, but then moves into a slightly different area. As Bob Gilmore’s notes say, you’ve composed a lot of music for the shakuhachi. What do you particularly like about the instrument, and how does this new piece ‘take a new approach to the instrument’, as Bob wrote?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003eFor me the shakuhachi opened the door to a world beyond that defined by the aesthetic obsessions and conceptions of my education. In\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003ehonkyoku\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003e, its traditional music, the self-sufficiency of the individual line derives from an approach to linear development that is born from quite different preoccupations. These are not defined intellectually but are built into the specific playing techniques and the player’s whole relationship with the instrument and its aesthetics.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003eLike many others in the sixties, my first introduction to the shakuhachi was through the famous Nonesuch recording by Goro Yamaguchi. In fact it was this recording that was partly responsible for me studying ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University, Connecticut USA. There I first met the great shakuhachi master Yoshikazu Iwamoto (he was actually my neighbour). He had come to the music department for a year as Artist in Residence and I was intensely studying the koto as part of my research and so we got to know each other. On his final day when he left to return to Japan, somewhat out of the blue, he asked me to write some music for him. He believed the shakuhachi, despite its impressive history and repertoire, was just at the beginning of its development, as it was emerging from its previous confines of Japan and entering a wider world. Slowly, over the next two decades, particularly after he came to work at Dartington in 1982, we were able to expand the range of the instrument and develop many new techniques through the new works I composed for him. This culminated in 1997 with \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003eUnnamed, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003ea\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003e47 minute solo piece using a number of different tuning systems. Soon after this Iwamoto gradually stopped playing in public and I thought that would be the end of my shakuhachi composing life as there were no obvious signs of new players coming along who were either willing or able to continue the ambitious path he had begun.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003eThen one day Kiku Day, a young Danish\/Japanese player, contacted me to say she was studying several of my pieces, in particular \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003eThe Tender Sadness of Tyrants as they Dance \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003efor shakuhachi and bass flute. I was astonished that she should approach such a formidable task. Much later Kiku asked if I might compose a new piece specifically for her as she was particularly interested in developing a new repertoire for the jinashi shakuhachi, a neglected older form of the instrument. Its basic sound is rougher and more breathy than the standard instrument but I was attracted by its very soft tones, particularly in the lower octave. I discovered that when isolated, they have a quite striking similarity to the human voice.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003eI suppose that what Bob saw as a new approach was my decision to prioritise just this one part of the instrument and to emphasise the intimate relationship with the player’s singing voice. In the past women were unable to enter the shakuhachi world and through the title,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C0\"\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003e, I wanted to underline Kiku’s quiet contemporary challenge to this tradition.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C1\"\u003eMany of your works have distinctive and evocative titles, for instance \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C2\"\u003eTowards The Darkness\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C1\"\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C2\"\u003e I Await the Sea’s Red Hibiscus, Contained in a Strange Garden, Beneath the Fired City \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C1\"\u003eetc. So where does the title of the next piece – \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C2\"\u003eRiverine Delusions\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C-C1\"\u003e - come from, and what does it refer to?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"yiv7874122565msonormal-C\"\u003eThis piece started with my wanting to make something for my long time friends in the Barton Workshop, Jim Fulkerson, Jos Zwaanenburg and John Anderson. They made a trio of bass trombone, bass flute and bass clarinet,  plus there was to be a part for myself playing light, mainly rubbed, percussion. It was written for a  tour of the USA. During those days, apart from composition, I was plagued by a recurring image of a great river at night, a huge body of water silently making its way through a sleeping city and on through the countryside. It appeared as a great linear form whose temporal continuity is forever in flux, a vaguely defined presence without any perceptible beginning or ending. These thoughts certainly suggested the form of the piece but beyond that I wouldn’t like to go. It is in no way a descriptive piece but more a continuation of my peculiar musical preoccupations. Then why mention rivers? Why indeed!  Where do such images come from, why are they are so persistent and what actual influence do they exert over on either life or music? They are mere fragments of  imagination. And because the music was written long before I found this particular title, I cannot now be sure how much my memory has been influenced retrospectively, as I tried to better understand the title. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eAnyway, eventually the piece took shape and in the course of time we took it on tour. But nevertheless something about this original version remained unresolved and unsatisfactory. It nagged at me, and so, later on, I musically re-thought the whole thing and undertook a root and branch re-composition, adding the  violin and cello parts (both with practice mutes) and the second percussionist (bass drum).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eTwo Voices with Axe\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e is pretty much what it says on the can – though there are also five instruments playing softly. It’s an extraordinary piece in which the fragile instrumental and vocal sounds are interrupted at irregular intervals by the deafening sound of an axe crashing into a block of wood. In his excellent audio documentary about your music in his \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003e‘Tentative Affinities’\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e series, Bob Gilmore identified a general tendency across several of your pieces in the past 20 years whereby “extreme stillness is often shattered by very loud bangs….as though our attempts to make a quiet, delicate and subtle music are repeatedly being destroyed by a brutal force coming from we know not where.” So where does this aesthetic of catastrophe come from, and what does it signify?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003ePerhaps I can approach this from a purely musical point of view. I first worked on the very quiet sections but at a certain juncture, reviewing what I had done, I felt the quietude was becoming just too self-contained and in danger of seeming a self-sufficient ‘protected’ enclave, perhaps an insipid utopia. This was not what I intended at all. To alleviate this problem it required some ‘other’ entity from outside, something quite extraneous, something rough and physical that would appear as a threat, a destructive force. Thus the axe.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eIt has been pointed out that tapping, knocking, hammering and suchlike have permeated my music more or less from the beginning. However, I only became conscious of this in my mid 40’s after the premiere of\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C19\"\u003e Quartet \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003ein 1990 when someone came up to me and said ‘what are all these knocking sounds about?’ It took me by surprise and I heard myself reply; ‘what knocking sounds?’ Since then I notice that they quite regularly recur and in various guises, sometimes as soft punctuation, as in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C19\"\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eor \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C19\"\u003eWhispers, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003esometimes more forcefully as here. Exactly what they might signify is difficult to say, but they insist on being there, and each time they solve a different kind of musical problem.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eThe album ends with \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eA Woman Singing\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e, which again uses the voice in an intimate, almost physical closeness, about as far removed from operatic grandiosity as you can get. I'm interested in the physicality of performance in your work, not just with voices but with instruments too. It seems that more than usually, your music isn't intended to exist on an abstract or immaterial plane, but is very much grounded in human bodies engaging physically with objects or instruments, and is run through with lived, biological rhythms. Does this make sense to you? And is it partly why you have never gone in much for using tapes, field recordings or electronic instruments?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eYou have put your finger on something that is quite central to my work. Writing for the solo human voice is for me the equivalent of a painter needing to engage with the nude human body. The unaccompanied solo voice reveals us in all our nakedness and nothing can be hidden except through rhetoric and drama. So I usually try to cut the voice back in the attempt to also minimise these final veils.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe voice can be extended through musical instruments which offer (amongst other things) a more ideal singing voice than the human vocal chords can encompass. Instruments are never merely inanimate tools to produce sounds.  They become a mediation between inner and outer worlds, deriving their potency by their internal and external contact with the player’s body via breath, lips or limbs. However, this interface can only become sufficiently sensitised by the specific physical skills nurtured over years of daily practice. Therefore practising, rehearsing and study have inherent meaning as vital parts of a single nexus that makes the musical life, not of value merely as preparation for a public show. From this whole nexus comes the special bond between player and instrument. Every sound becomes intimately bound to a corresponding bodily movement, however discrete, so that sound and body movement become synonyms for each other.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe following is one illustration of the intimate identification between instrument and player. I once went to see the eminent Indian sitarist Imrat Khan. When I arrived at his house he told me that although he had never previously drunk alcohol, he had nevertheless decided that morning that he wanted to know why people were so obsessed with it. So, in the spirit of enquiry he had consumed more than half a bottle of wine. ‘And what has been the effect?’ I asked tentatively. ‘Oh! it hasn’t affected me in the least’ he replied jauntily, ‘but.....it has had a rather strange effect on my sitar.’\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eAs a musician I am still mesmerised by that initial contact with the visceral physicality of an instrument, its materiality. Each day it is recreated anew. That magical moment when bow first meets string, or the first sound producing breath appears, or finger finds the familiar ivory, wood or metal, and in each case sound is conjured from thin air. And after this moment - the line, always the line. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eAs far as performance is concerned, live acoustic performance is my ideal and I think my music tends to work best in performances before smaller, more intimate audiences.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/sneh_reboot_19202ddb-c4e5-46fa-995f-f78057b6bf28_480x480.jpg?v=1751741699\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eReviews\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e“If only for having the advantage of hindsight, it may be easier to rediscover the past than to discover the present. I got sent some new CDs from Another Timbre, the label that’s been putting out essential recordings of music by Laurence Crane, James Saunders, Bryn Harrison, Catherine Lamb, etc etc. One of these discs is a collection of pieces by Frank Denyer.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eI’d been aware of Denyer mostly as a musician, and from his work with The Barton Workshop. It was only on hearing a broadcast of his piece The Colours of Jellyfish for soprano, children’s chorus and orchestra that I realised he was a composer with a unique voice. The pieces on this new disc, Whispers, are a few years older than that orchestral piece, and recorded mostly in 2009: a neat example of rediscovering the present.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThis album can be shocking in places. Even more spare and seemingly artless than I expected, the music takes familiar techniques but approaches them from a new angle, creating a paradoxical mood that quietly works on the listener. There’s a tense feeling of expectation, or apprehension; not from the music itself, but from my wariness of what it might all turn out to mean.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe opening piece, Whispers, is about precisely that: Denyer himself whispering, humming, muttering, a halting procession of small vocal sounds. Like a man half-singing, absent-mindedly to himself. Listening in seems almost intrusive, but there are other things going on: small tappings and rustlings from various noisemakers, and at times a viola plays almost inaudibly in the distance. (The entire album is recorded very quietly, suggesting that without careful listening much of it may be lost.) The sounds vacillate between unconscious and self-conscious, the act of producing them at the same level of intensity and restraint over 20 minutes denies any accusation of self-indulgence or even self-expression. The meaning remains as unknowable, or knowable, as any unconscious sound.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe entire album flows seamlessly from one piece to the next. Woman with Jinashi Shakuhachi is, like Whispers, precisely what the title describes. The mouth sounds change to the musician Kiku Day’s voice, alternating with raw shakuhachi sounds until the two lose distinction, and again the tapping sounds. It’s tempting to think of the music as some sort of ritual, but again the ordering of sounds is too organic, too intimate. Again the sounds seem almost unconscious, as though they were the by-product of some other activity that remains unknown.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eAs an interlude, The Barton Workshop’s performance of Riverine Delusions may be the most conventional piece here – it’s evocative, but the image it paints is almost transparent, with faint gestures suggesting big movements, the indelible remnants of an image faded almost to invisibility. The keening flute stands out in relief, a preparation for the next work. Again, the title Two Voices with Axe explains everything but reveals nothing. A male and female voice blend in a tissue of sounds with muted instruments. The jarring intrusion of the axe comes almost as a release, breaking the tension of expectation that something loud might finally happen. Despite the most private and personal circumstances of the music-making here, the music that emerges from it is like a wild force of nature – it always seems peaceful and benign on the surface, but all along I’ve been conscious that it could turn on me without warning.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe axe-blows sound rich and varied, with no suggestion that they were contrived for aesthetic effect. The late Bob Gilmore, who produced the album, is the axeman.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eIn the final piece, A Woman Singing, Juliet Fraser’s voice mirrors the opening of the album. Again barely audible when played under normal conditions, the voice is suspended in a stream of unconsciousness, the emotional range suppressed to a nearly internalised expression. By being so withdrawn, the singer’s exposure feels all the more stark, through the lack of mediation, the temptation to listen in closer, like an eavesdropper.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThese works are not improvised but fully, meticulously composed. There is a fine, complex understanding of the subtleties of music at work here, of the material of sound, the acting of performing and the relationship of musician to listener. At first the sound world seems close to the very refined sensibility of Martin Iddon’s excellent pneuma, which Another Timbre released last year. Denyer’s approach and musical concerns are different, of course, and so is his music: this is made evident, however, not through any ideological or programmatic pronouncement, but through the very stuff of the music itself, that entices and gnaws at the listener. The reactions this music may provoke are complex and variable, and I would not like to try to define them now.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBen Harper\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C20\"\u003eBoring Like a Drill\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C20\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003e“London-born musician and composer Frank Denyer enjoys a reputation that is belied by his relatively sparse discography, Whispers being only his fifth album since the millennium and his first since Silenced Voices (Mode, 2008). Whispers and Silenced Voices make fitting titles for Denyer compositions and albums, as he has displayed an increasing affection for quieter compositions. On the current album, the composition \"Whispers\" dominates, consisting of seventeen short vocal pieces, with a total duration of less than twenty-one minutes; performed quietly by Denyer with his sustained wordless tones only being accompanied by occasional spoken words, whistling or tapping from himself, or muted violin courtesy from Elisabeth Smalt, at times the overall effect can feel like eavesdropping on a séance. Denyer sounds extremely vulnerable, and the most immediate reaction to this may be one of embarrassment at intruding on a very personal, private experience. Nonetheless, with repeated listenings, over time the piece's fragile, delicate atmosphere becomes compellingly listenable and very memorable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe remainder of the album, recorded between 2009 and 2013, revisits other aspects of Denyer's music. His only previous album on Another Timbre was 2007's Music for Shakuhachi , featuring Yoshikazu Iwamoto playing shakuhachi on nine tracks recorded between 1984 and 1999. His work with Yoshikazu was important in Denyer's musical development and, on the current album, \"Woman with Jinashi Shakuhachi\" (dating from 2011) is a welcome reminder of that music while building upon it. On the piece, in a fresh approach to the instrument, Kiku Day combines it with her voice and percussion to create a coherent soundscape that is both charming and engaging. The following track, \"Riverine Delusions\" features The Barton Workshop, the (usually) seven-piece group founded by Denyer in 1990 to perform his music and that of other composers. Although, in recent years, they have released more albums of other composers (Wolff, Lucier, Cage, Feldman...) than of Denyer, he remains an occasional member, playing piano or, as here, percussion. The instrumental line-up of bass flute, bass clarinet, bass trombone, bass drum, muted violin, muted cello and percussion gives a good idea of the soundscape, but it cannot hint at how integrated and comfortable the players sound with one another, the result of much time playing together. Impressive.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C8\"\u003eThe dramatically titled \"Two Voices with Axe\" combines the voices of Denyer and Juliet Fraser with an axe wielded by Denyer's long-time producer and writer of sleeve notes Bob Gilmore, all accompanied by a small ensemble conducted by Jamie Man. The delicacy of the voices and accompaniment is effectively contrasted with the intermittent noisy interjections from the axe, creating a dynamic tension between the two. (Sadly, Gilmore passed away in 2015, so the CD is dedicated to him.) The album closes with a track that almost takes us full circle; on \"A Woman Singing\", Juliet Fraser sings alone, unaccompanied, at times sounding almost as exposed as Denyer did on \"Whispers\". Established Denyer aficionados will find Whispers well up to Denyer's usual high standards, while the uninitiated or curious can start here with confidence.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Eyles\u003c\/strong\u003e, Squid’s Ear\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51401043673402,"sku":"at82","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at82DenyerWhispers.jpg?v=1749133270"},{"product_id":"magnus-granberg-skogen-nun-es-wird-nicht-weit-mehr-gehn","title":"Magnus Granberg","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSkogen\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eAnna Lindal \u0026amp; Angharad Davies - violin\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eLeo Svensson Sander - cello\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eErik Carlsson - percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eJohn Eriksson - vibraphone\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eHenrik Olsson - persussion, objects\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003ePetter Wästberg - contact microphones, mixing board\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003ed’incise - electronics, objects\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eMagnus Granberg - prepared piano\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Granberg_Magnus_02404f4c-99c3-4fd5-8e95-77b0d32a208f_480x480.jpg?v=1751620895\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eInterview with Magnus Granberg\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C\"\u003eTell us about your new piece, 'Nun, es wird nicht weit mehr gehn'\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eThe title of the piece, which roughly translates as ’Now, there won’t be much more walking’, is a fragment from Wilhelm Müller’s lyrics to\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C1\"\u003eDie Krähe'\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003e, the fifteenth song in Schubert’s song cycle\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C1\"\u003eDie Winterreise\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003e, which I had listened to several times before writing the piece. I guess I have an ongoing relationship with Schubert’s music, his songs in particular, and I had also used a couple of other songs from\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C1\"\u003eDie Winterreise\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eas a point of departure when writing an earlier piece, ’Ist gefallen in den Schnee’, which also was the first piece of mine to be released on Another Timbre. So, I happened to revisit Schubert’s song cycle and somehow got attached to a couple of adjoining songs, 'Der greise Kopf’ and ’Die Krähe’, which I then used as points of departure when writing the piece. After starting to compose, materials from a couple of other sources crept in as well: the medieval English song ’The Woods So Wilde’, and also a song by Dowland, ’Can She Excuse My Wrongs’, which uses part of 'The Woods So Wilde’ in one of its inner voices. The idea of using ’The Woods So Wilde’ as a source material is a kind of silly, (and until now) private and playful tribute to the wild members of my ensemble Skogen, which translates as ’The Woods’ or ’The Forest’ in English. So I used rhythmic materials from all the different sources and tonal materials from the two Schubert songs, which I then kind of deconstructed, transformed and recomposed into something different. In the end the piece turned out to use four pools of material using slightly different tonal modes, all containing comparatively large collections of melodic fragments, extended melodies, chords, timbres, single sounds and rhythms. The different pools of materials were then combined with different time values and ordered into a temporal framework consisting of a number of different sequences, through which the performers navigate with (hopefully) some help from a set of guidelines or suggestions provided by the composer.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C2\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C\"\u003eYou have developed several pieces with Skogen across quite a long period of time. How would you say that your relationship with the musicians and the way they interpret your music has changed over the years?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eYes, having had the opportunity to work with Skogen has really been of decisive importance when developing my music. I more or less started Skogen some thirteen or fourteen years ago in order to try out certain ideas, methods and materials that I had been working on and thinking about for quite some time before daring to present them to an ensemble. So working with Skogen has definitely influenced my work greatly and helped clarify things for me as regards how my music could work. I think that things would have been very different, and much more difficult – if not impossible - without this possibility of working with an ensemble of players who I trusted and who knew my work, and who were able at the earliest stages to experiment together to bring my first pieces into being.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eBy now the ensemble is used to the way my pieces normally work, and so we tend to approach them with a healthy dose of independence. The pieces serve as a clearly articulated environment or a framework within which the musicians move very freely in accordance with their own individual dispositions and leanings, while the materials and the temporal framework serves to guarantee an overarching coherence to the music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C2\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C\"\u003eYou’ve worked with several other ensembles in recent years, but – to use an analogy from football - does working with Skogen feel like playing on your home ground?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eYes, I guess it still does in a way: there’s hardly any instruction needed apart from perhaps a few tiny remarks when rehearsing a new piece. The players all seem very much at home with how the music works and act very freely and independently in relation to it while still staying true to it. But working with other ensembles in later years has been very valuable and equally rewarding: to get to the opportunity to hear other musicians with other experiences and inclinations approaching the music and finding their own ways of cultivating it, as individuals as well as collectives, has been very interesting and informative as well as being a very joyful experience, to get to be surprised and to learn something from a different perspective.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C\"\u003eI wonder what is the attraction of Schubert, and of the very romantic landscape painting by Julius von Leypold which you chose for the cover of the CD? Is there are barely suppressed romanticism in your music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eYes, that’s a very good question which I’ve asked myself repeatedly and to which I haven’t really had an unambiguous answer to so far. On the contrary I quite often find myself estranged from much romantic music with its sometimes grand gestures and excessive expressivity, as compared to music from, for example, the Renaissance and baroque eras towards, to which I tend to respond in a much more immediate and unequivocally positive manner. And quite often it’s the very small things and not the grand gestures or extensive developments in Schubert or other romantic music that happen to attract me and stir my interest and imagination. Things such as the atmosphere of a short introduction, the voice leading in a short passage, a melody here and there, a chord or two, a surprising modulation. But I do also realise that I may have a certain inclination to some ideas and feelings perhaps often associated with romanticism, of longing and surrender, of vulnerability and the nocturnal.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eAnd if my music should be called romantic it’s hopefully not so much because of it being a manifestation of a romantic subject as it is a matter of the disappearance or gradual dissolution of a romantic subject, of perhaps becoming and being part of a larger existence and its various transformations.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Storskogen_focused_480x480.jpg?v=1751621049\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Br_dtext-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Br_dtext-C-C0\"\u003eSkogen\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428623057210,"sku":"at138","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at138Skogenfrontcover.jpg?v=1749639361"},{"product_id":"frank-denyer-the-boundaries-of-intimacy","title":"Frank Denyer","description":"\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e1       \u003cstrong\u003eMother, Child and Violin\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(2005)             6:02\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e       \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e Juliet Fraser (soprano) Layla (child vocalist) Janneke van Prooijen (violin)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e2-7   \u003cstrong\u003eTwo Female Singers and Two Flutes\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(2013)      11:52\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e        Juliet Fraser \u0026amp; Sophie Fetokaki (voices)\u003cbr\u003e        Jos Zwaanenberg \u0026amp; Carlos Anez (flutes)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e8      \u003cstrong\u003e Piece for Koto \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eversion 2 \u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(1975)      4:50\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e9       \u003cstrong\u003ePiece for Koto\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e version 1\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(1975)      3:15\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e          \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e         Nobutaka Yosjizawa, koto\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e10     \u003cstrong\u003eString Quartet\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(2017\/18)      18:23\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e        Luna String Quartet: \u003cbr\u003e        Janneke van Prooijen \u0026amp; Diamanda La Berge Dramm (violins)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e        Elisabeth Smalt (viola)   Katharina Gross (cello)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e11     \u003cstrong\u003eBeyond the Boundaries of Intimacy\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(2015)      12:3\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e        Jos Zwaanenberg (flute \u0026amp; electronics)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e12-13  \u003cstrong\u003e Frog\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e(1974)      8:36\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e           Elisabeth Smalt (sneh)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/FD_portrait_May_08_480x480.jpg?v=1751581631\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eSleevenotes by Frank Denyer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eMost of the music on this CD is soft, some of it very soft indeed. To achieve the optimal listening level, think of the musicians as being just over the other side of the room in which you are listening, rather than in another grander space. Imagine them performing intimately, without amplification, and often in an under-voice in order not to disturb the neighbours. This will give you a realistic idea of the listening level. You may find it takes a few minutes to get used to it, but your ears will soon re-adjust.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMother, Child and Violin\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(2005)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eA musical family portrait. The woman as mother leads, the child follows, often in imitation. The violin is more remote, more abstract but its melodic span is wider. The piece is self-contained, at times playful, at others perhaps a little anxious and there are even moments of distress. All is nevertheless subsumed within its formal unifying linearity. Questions arise: is the violin the real father or just acting as a surrogate father? The child hints at playfulness but nonetheless is restrained and on her best behaviour. Is the unity between these family members their underlying strength or an unnecessary inhibition?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eThis is one of the four pieces I wrote with ‘woman’ in the title, but it is the only one of the set requiring more than a single performer. The others are:\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eWoman Viola and Crow\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(solo violist),\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eWoman with Jinashi Shakuhachi\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e, and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eA Woman Singing\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(solo voice)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTwo Female Voices and Two Flutes\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(2013)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eNestling inside this single span of music are six smaller pieces. The two singers, in addition to their vocal sounds, knock and scrape a cloth board, and fleetingly tap one of four tuned porcelain bowls. Later on a heavy wooden pole is used. The first flautist plays the standard silver flute and a bamboo flute, the second plays baroque traverso, bass flute, and piccolo.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003ePiece for Koto \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eversion 2\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(1975)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eWhen I began studying the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003ekoto\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ein 1974 I was immediately attracted by the austerity and emotional restraint of the traditional repertoire. I was also interested in the traditional tablature.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eAll musical notations, including stave notation, specify just a few of the music’s essential ingredients, the rest is left to the oral tradition. Certain facets are thereby highlighted and given a privileged status. What exactly falls into this category is peculiar to each system but reveals a great deal about the underlying musical aesthetic of the culture which created it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eThis little piece of mine started as a simple exercise to better understand traditional\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003ekoto\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etablature and to discover how it would affect my own musical thinking if I used it as a composer. At first I found that the notation was drawing my attention to musical parameters I had previously considered ephemeral, such as the precise string to be used for a particular pitch, the exact finger to be used and whether it was to be an upstroke or downstroke. On the other hand, the notation made it next to impossible to think about absolute pitch or any fine rhythmical detail.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eAs I proceeded I became more acclimatised to these new circumstances, which amounted to a real shift in orientation. It gradually became clear that what I was writing was no longer a mere exercise, but was adding something essential to my compositional work.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003ePiece for Koto \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eversion 1\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(1975)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eThe two versions of this piece started to develop quite early in the compositional process. Even before I knew exactly what it really was, it started branching out in two irreconcilable directions. As a composer I am familiar with this situation, but normally this soon resolves itself as one version becomes dominant while the other is eventually abandoned. However, in this case I remained very much attracted by the restraint and austerity of line in version 1 but could not bring myself to negate the many delicate techniques of version 2. Although the underlying structure remained the same, the two were irreconcilable and I continued to work on them both still half-believing that at some point an accommodation would suggest itself. This never happened and so the two versions resulted. Even now I can’t say which I prefer.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eString Quartet\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(2017\/18)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eThe emotional differences between a note being played by a single instrument and the same note played by two similar instruments in unison, are significant. This changes again when three instruments combine, and is different again with four. All such changes affect the music’s ‘tone of voice’. Intimacy diminishes in inverse proportion to the number of players. Even richer changes occur when octave doublings are in the mix. In this string quartet I wanted such perceptions to become a major part of the music’s dialectic, as it delicately carries its single melodic strand through time.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eA central part of all my recent work has been the exploration of the under-voice and the problems of making it manifest. Aspects of playing are heard that are usually subsumed under a more sparkling surface, but beneath this surface there is another world with its own ways of articulating time. In this work all four instruments use heavy practice mutes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBeyond the Boundaries of Intimacy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(2015)\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003efor flute and electronics\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eComposed and dedicated to Jos Zwaanenburg, a long-time friend and colleague to whom I owe much. In this piece, the almost imperceptible use of electronics (my one and only step in this direction) is simply a friendly nod of recognition for Zwaanenburg’s ground-breaking new interfaces between flute and electronics.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eFor this piece, the performer does not stand back from the audience but comes as close as is practicable. No visible wires or connections connect the player, or the flute, to the sounds coming from the speakers, and neither should the flautist appear to control them. The speakers are placed far apart, invisible to the audience and preferably high up so that it is impossible for the audience to locate the source of these sounds in any particular direction. These ‘other’ sounds are all pitched and conventionally notated in the score but are so soft that they have little recognisable timbre except when they imitate the live flute (8’42” to 8’52”). The precise dynamic level of these sounds ranges between\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eppppppp\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eand\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eppppp\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e. This piece is unsuitable for large concert halls.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrog\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e(1974)\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003efor a bowed stringed instrument\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eWritten in Ahmedabad, India, the odd title popped into my mind while composing and wouldn’t go away, although I had no idea at the time what it might mean. A week or so later I tentatively pencilled it in at the top of the page and it just seemed to belong there, so I kept it. The generic instrumental designation ‘for a bowed stringed instrument’ merely reflected my desire to keep open the doors to musicians from other cultural traditions, but it would be fair to say that at the time this was no more than an aspiration for the future.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eIn 1980 I designed a new bowed stringed instrument for\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eFrog\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eand parts of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eMelodies\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e. I called it\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003esneh.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eIt is a bowed instrument with a skin covered belly and it has a timbre that I thought particularly suited this music. For some reason, such a family of instruments never developed in Europe, although they are quite common in other parts of the world, and so I decided to fill the gap with a design of my own. One of my first problems was finding the skin to cover the sound box. I was living in Kenya at the time, and through my fieldwork, monitor lizard skin was easily obtained. This had certain advantages over animal skin because it does not stretch with humidity and is also very long lasting. It also looks really beautiful. The new instrument was given an extended viola neck so that at least some western string players would not find the idea of learning a new instrument too daunting. A few sneh performances did take place at that time, but players found it heavy and unwieldy and it soon took up a silent residence in my study where it lived for the next 35 years. But one day it was spotted by Elisabeth Smalt, who instantly took it off the shelf and started to tune it despite the fact that it had lost one string and looked a little neglected. Immediately it sprang back to life and she decided then and there to seriously take up the challenge of mastering the instrument. Her long experience with Partch’s adapted viola was clearly a help.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eFor some years I referred to it as my lizard viola, but my wife asked me to name it after her sister, who sadly had died prematurely from cancer. Her name was Sneh.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eFrank Denyer, August 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/sneh_reboot_480x480.jpg?v=1751581854\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eElisabeth Smalt playing the sneh\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428657234234,"sku":"at148","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at148DenyerBoundariescover.jpg?v=1749640258"},{"product_id":"frank-denyer-the-fish-that-became-the-sun-songs-of-the-dispossessed","title":"Frank Denyer","description":"\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eOctandre Ensemble, conductor Jon Hargreaves\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eBenjamin Marquise Gilmore, violin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eNew London Chamber Choir, director Matthew Hamilton\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eConsortium 5\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003ePerc’m Percussion Ensemble (director George Barton)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003ePearl and Albert Snow, child vocalists\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/heptatonic_pipes_240x240.jpg?v=1751580556\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eEssay by Michael Turnbull\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eQuestions That May Yet Be Useful\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThinking about Frank Denyer’s ongoing preoccupation with the usefulness of music, I’d like to ask what an almost hour-long piece for eighty-seven instruments made of discarded material, along with a number of conventional sound-makers more or less on the periphery of the orchestral mainstream, might actually\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003edo\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eplastic mineral-water bottle\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eTo use a buzzword: how is it performative? The word has nothing to do with performance. It was introduced into linguistic theory during the 1950s by the philosopher J.L.Austin, who coined the term in order to show how the act of speaking can bring about an extra-linguistic effect. Used in an artistic context, it therefore refers to the reality a work of art brings about.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003etwo steel armchairs with plastic meshwork\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eBecause this reality will be recognised in how it affects and is different from the present, we ought to peg out the present first. So what’s it like now, in mid-2019?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThe seas are filling up with plastic; there are more refugees in the world than at any time in human history; social division is being increasingly cultivated; public space is no longer understood as such; WWI ended over a hundred years ago; we are in the grip of an uncontrolled technological development with no idea about what it’s for; we are profoundly estranged from the earth and the forces of nature; the temperature is rising.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThis (admittedly personal and absurdly brief) enumeration is important, because no matter how people will hear these sounds in future, for us right now this is their inescapable and very prominent context, if only because it’s all so constantly in the media (less so in conversation where, I imagine, we foreground a different reality). For comparison, people hearing the first public performances of the Eroica Symphony in 1805 must surely have done so in the context of the republicanism sweeping Europe at the time. Which is not to say that signs of the times, no matter how urgently they press upon the minds of the people living through them, necessarily imbue a piece of music with a particular intent or message or awareness, but to emphasise their being of their time, both in compositional impulse and in reception. They echo within specific landscapes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003emetal bicycle basket\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThe present time is terrifying, and I for one don’t think that anything much can or will be done about it. We’re sliding towards some as yet suspected but surely dreadful inevitable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eI think we’re a disastrous species. We just destroy everything. But a minority of us will survive whatever catastrophe it was. This, I think, is optimism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eDoris Lessing, in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eReluctant Heroine\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e, BBC\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eImagine\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003edocumentary, 2013\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003ewooden upright chair with no seat\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/wooden_rulers_240x240.jpg?v=1751580901\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eYet even when ‘nothing can be done’, a piece of music does something. If only to highlight the context in which it is heard. In the first half of the1990s, when Denyer was writing\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eThe Fish that Became the Sun\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e, past structures (certainties) were disintegrating: many states (not just in Eastern Europe) were breaking away or reuniting; the post-Yugoslavian wars overshadowed the decade; the First Gulf War casts its shadow to this day, as do the genocide in Rwanda and the failure of the Japanese economic boom. Decay and realignment were very present on the world stage. It wasn’t a great time, but it was just possible – and felt compellingly necessary – to give events a positive future twist. Which Frank did:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eWhen things are thrown away on a rubbish dump, they decay; things separate, becoming part of something larger. And as such they can enter into unusual alliances. They find themselves cheek by jowl with the most unexpected neighbours, and a new life starts at that moment of new alliances.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eFrank Denyer, in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eSome Sounds Are Gates\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e, film by Suhail Merchant, 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003efive handwritten CDs in a cardboard box\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eIn the face of destruction, Frank Denyer makes instruments out of its result and symbol – detritus, fragments – and has them speak to us in a musical ritual. And what they say, I suggest, is this: Certainty, self-assertion and fervour are steering us into catastrophe, so here is an aesthetic of hesitance, of careful appreciation, of sharing out. Also of the broken: look at these beautiful remnants. There’s a mournful aspect to it, but it also recalls the eternal potential for new form and therefore evolution. And there’s something rather grand in its acceptance of destruction: no organ here, just a few pipes – but what a sound! Yes, it says, a life among the remains is possible.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eA novel that explores this territory is Marcel Theroux’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eFar North\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(2009). Set in a climate-changed future, and focusing very much on objects, on things from the past and how to make, repair, preserve and find them - for one’s own survival has become dependent on such skills - the narrative ultimately moves forward in a vision of love (sexual, parental) that transcends these things. What really counts is the purpose to which they are put to work in the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eoval wooden table top\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/bowed_wine_glasses_240x240.jpg?v=1751580598\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eI think Denyer’s detritus instruments, and the aesthetic they embody and through which they function in the immateriality of sound, activate the principle of hope. This is what they ‘perform’ (see above, para. 2); this is the reality they bring about. They are hope generators in a time when hope is fading.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eSimple things transfigured through skill and energy and time to transform them into a world one could hardly dream of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eFrank Denyer, in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eSome Sounds Are Gates\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e, film by Suhail Merchant, 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e… and what’s good about these objects is that they have a past, they’ve already had a life, and they’re still very much alive. All you have to do is give them a second chance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eLouis Pons, in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eThe Gleaners and I\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e, film by Agnès Varda, 2000\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eAnother thing a musical ritual with over eighty garbage instruments might do is counterbalance ‘pataphysical knowledge – that something can’t be true but is in fact real’ (Zoran Terzic, in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eDIAPHANES\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e6\/7, summer 2019). Instruments made of rubbish are an engagement with and affirmation of something no longer real (in the sense of existent) but still true. In their very fragmentation they assert a reality of destruction and loss and materiality that is an antidote to the unreality of much contemporary life. The low status of their components, now incorporated into a cultural artefact, is an echo of wholesomeness within a dominant culture for which wholesomeness, wholes or the whole no longer hold much weight – except in the sense of all, as in ‘I want it all’. These instruments are a rejection of wanting (they’ve been thrown away, haven’t they?)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/adapted_organ_pipes_Frank_Denyer_240x240.jpg?v=1751580661\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eA desire built up in me to work in a material of waste and softness. Something yielding with its only message a collection of lines imprinted like a friendly joke. A silent discussion of their history exposed by their new shapes. Labored commonly with happiness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eRobert Rauschenberg,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eCardbirds\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebrochure, 1971\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003ePerfectly embodying the I-want-it-all culture are the supertalls of New York, those recent skyscrapers that can’t be true but are real, that shouldn’t exist but do, in an affront to any idea of wholes or communities and therefore to culture. On some profoundly useful imaginative level, Denyer’s instruments unmake these monstrosities. In their poverty and sophistication they collapse the walls of Jericho again. Skilfully shaking shells and swishing brooms, their players evoke a reality in which the supertalls and the culture that produced them no longer exist.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eglass cider bottle\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eAnd what about culture? I’ve been using the term loosely but I hope not sloppily to mean both art and society. The fragmentary material nature of Denyer’s fish-sun instruments suggests important questions about tradition, which is always evolving or dying. But their sounds – because these seem to be both within and without tradition, both aesthetically shaped and left alone – also inevitably speak about culture. Their composer is examining formed sound – that is, music – through formed sound itself. He isn’t only creating musical form, he’s asking cultural questions through this form about the substance that cultural forms embody, or might or could embody. He’s trying to frame questions – in the perhaps still culturally recognisable form of ritual, concert, spectacle – that may yet be useful.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eMichael Turnbull\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eBerlin, July 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eObjects found on Adalbertstraße, Skalitzer Straße, Oranienstraße\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/conch_shell_Frank_Denyer_480x480.jpg?v=1751580244\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C7\"\u003eSleevenotes by Frank Denyer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eA word about the physical layout. On stage there is a solo violinist, also a group of 4 male vocalists who often sing through eunuch flutes (see below) and are supported by a harmonium. Another group of four female vocalists have at various times to sing, clap, stamp, and use various rattles, including two giant sistra. In front of the stage are the sitar, mandolin and hammered dulcimer. Slightly further back on the stage are four players of adapted organ pipes (see below). The same group also occasionally play the quartet of crumhorns, bowed wine glasses, and sundry other small instruments. To the right of the stage there is a group comprising three double basses and a contrabassoon. At the far back of the stage in the centre are two players of assorted whistles: animal calls, small ocarinas, a conch, and a trochus shell trumpet etc. At one point two small children appear and sing a small set of songs.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThe seven percussionists are positioned along each side and at the back of the audience. They play a large array of instruments consisting of 2 sets of six slate gongs, 5 glass gongs, 4 bags of glass marbles, 5 long slap sticks, 4 concrete paving stones, knife on whetstone, 5 metal scrapers, bamboo switch, 3 long sandpaper blocks, rubbed balloon, 2 pairs of glass marbles on resonators, 2 lamella dyads, 3 iron bells, 2 crotales, 3 pairs of finger cymbals, 5 steel plates, 2 anvils, 2 Balinese kettle gongs, a large cabaca, kayamba, palm fronds rattle, mango seed rattle, silver jingles, gunghuroo, 2 suspended sheets of aluminium foil, 2 gourd guiros, metal guiro, 3 hard brooms, 2 leather cushions, 2 wooden planks, 3 pairs of heavy sticks, 2 pairs of medium sticks, 2 pairs of light sticks, small triangle, rubbed glass, thick paper on frame (suspended), 2 thunder sheets, 5  friction drums, small tom tom, dholak, medium and large bodhran, large conga, 4 bass drums (various sizes), lions roar, large tabor, flexitone, quijada and a long carbon fibre fishing rod.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eFinally there are eight cornets placed outside and surrounding the concert venue. They are heard only in the final section (track 14).\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eWith the exception of those players outside, all the other musicians are required to sometimes sing, hum or clap, therefore singing can arise from any part of the auditorium.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThe score is fully written out and there is no improvisation as such.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eIt was composed between 1991 and 1996.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/eunuch_flutes_240x240.jpg?v=1751580713\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThere are several different tuning systems employed. The pipes are equi-heptatonic, and a modified form of this tuning is found in the music for sitar, mandolin and hammered dulcimer. The children’s songs are diatonic, as are the small sections of unison singing, other parts are chromatic with microtonal sub–divisions. The outside cornets have their own complex and idiosyncratic microtonal intonation system.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eThe opening is played by a solitary and heavily muted violin. The violinist re-surfaces throughout the piece, not only with memories of the opening melody but in various other guises too, once as a sort of demon folk fiddler (track 9)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThe quartet of pipe players. Each player has a set has three or four stopped wooden flue pipes from an organ. These, having been glued together, are then blown by mouth. Some pipes have been given a single finger hole. While they are being played each player has to simultaneously tap the side of the pipe with a metal thimble worn on the index finger. At their initial appearance (track 3) the players seem to be absorbed in some private ritual which we witness only as distant outsiders. Later a group of unison female voices complement this strange atmosphere with a long gentle melody of their own and then two very tiny ocarinas complete the tableau.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C18\"\u003eEunuch flutes\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eEunuch flutes are instruments that have fallen completely out of use. In the seventeenth century Marin Mersenne says that in France there were concerts of eunuch flutes in four or five parts. The instrument disappeared in the eighteenth century and is now found only in museums.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/eunuch_flute_Frank_Denyer_240x240.jpg?v=1751580766\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eA eunuch flute consists of a wooden or metal tube about 80cms long widening out slightly to form a bell. The upper end of the tube is closed by a membrane stretched across the aperture. This is covered with a pierced wooden globe. The mouthpiece is a simple round hole into which the performer sings, cut into the side of the main tube. The instrument intensifies the voice and radically alters its timbre.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThese instruments colour this work throughout but are particularly prominent in the two sections of homophonic rhythmic unison (tracks 5 and 11). These sections are quite different to all the other music in the piece, being in a distorted brutal homophonic style that locks the eunuch flutes in rhythmic unison with the harmonium, three double basses and contrabassoon, also sometimes, even the violin. (Track 5) Its brutal power is unrelenting. When it eventually does pause, soft unison voices quietly emerge (all the remaining musicians vocally participate), endowing the line with a soft persistence.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eMuch later two small children take refuge, uncertain what to do. (Track 12) They sing:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eBeetle in the corner, what will you do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Keep very still.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle in the corner, what will you do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Fasten your coat and close your eyes,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Don’t go out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   We will – what will we do?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle in the corner -\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Go! Go! You’re very small and not very tall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e    Beetle!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e      \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   A magic horse will come along,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Take us away, take us away,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   A magic horse will save us from wrong.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   My Grandmother said,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e    “If you visit me,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   You shall have gooseberry bread, apple pie, jam tarts, marzipan\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e    If you visit me,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   You shall have apple pie, gooseberry bread,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   But you don’t get any if you stay in bed.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Wake up, Wake up, Wake up\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle in the corner, what will you do?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   You know what they said:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Your mother’s missing and your father’s dead!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle in the corner,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle in the corner,\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e   Beetle, beetle, beetle.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/shell_trumpet.jpg?v=1751580807\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e(Track 14) In the final section the eight cornets, outside the hall, are heard in the far distance. They reveal quite another reality, and with it a very different perception of time. Perhaps it requires a while to mentally re-adjust, but it also becomes apparent that the sound of each cornet is coming from a different compass direction, and together they completely surround the hall (something that can only be hinted at in a stereo recording). All the players inside have fallen silent but after a while one or two of them tentatively try to imitate these infiltrating notes and phrases. These ‘inside’ sounds, however delicate, are very ‘present’ (real), while the cornets remain ephemeral and distant. Nevertheless, the fragile beginnings of a dialogue are hinted at. The piece concludes with repeated unisons between cornets outside, and the double basses inside.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eFrank Denyer, August 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428659888442,"sku":"at149","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at149DenyerFishcover.jpg?v=1749640340"},{"product_id":"magnus-granberg-let-pass-my-weaey-guiltless-ghost-skogen","title":"Magnus Granberg","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSkogen\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003eMagnus Granberg - prepared piano \u0026amp; composition\u003cbr\u003eKo Ishikawa - sho\u003cbr\u003eAnna Lindal - violin\u003cbr\u003eLeo Svensson Sander - cello\u003cbr\u003eSimon Allen - vibraphone\u003cbr\u003eErik Carlsson - percussion\u003cbr\u003eHenrik Olsson - objects\u003cbr\u003ePetter W\u003cspan style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;\"\u003eä\u003c\/span\u003estberg - contact microphone, mixing board, loudspeaker\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/magnus-granberg-2140868745_480x480.jpg?v=1751571223\" alt=\"\" style=\"float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eJesse Goin interviews Magnus Granberg\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eJG: \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIt's striking to me how present and vital the organic (and sentient) is in your musical world -both in the descriptive language around your process of composition and , to my ears, in the sounds themselves; e.g., Skogen means forest, bombax is a species of tree, you refer to the fragments of source material you integrate into your pieces as 'pools', you describe the framing of a piece as 'environments', etc.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThen there are the sounds themselves- of course it's much more difficult to convey the organicity one hears in these environments, of their atmosphere- but it’s there nonetheless- so much so that I have come to regard your compositions as diaristic, field recordings, multiple views of familiar landscapes-but more on that later…  Some of the specific qualities in the pooled sounds-their instability, fragility, transience- suggests an organicity and sentience in their net effect, whatever the compositional strategies you employ - and some of the sounds are sentient in a mimetic way-I hear forest creatures!  \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eMG: Yes, I think that's a very good observation and a pertinent remark. When I first was in the process of envisioning the music in the early 2000s (after going through a very thorough crisis where I more or less stopped playing the saxophone and more or less quit playing jazz and free jazz) I realized that I had this desire for the music to be more of an environment, a place or a terrain rather than primarily being an object, an architecture or a means of individual or collective expression. I also felt something of a frustration with what I perceived as a dichotomy and separation of compositional and improvisational practices, and that there should be so many possible gradations of the spectrum between freedom and fixation that perhaps weren't being explored. So gradually I started to envision a musical environment in which the musicians were allowed and encouraged to move freely in accordance with their own judgment and individual dispositions while at the same time being governed by the same overarching principles or perhaps rather just simply being part of the same creation or environment, a creation or environment which was in more or less constant flux, change or transformation while at the same time always being the same. To provide a potential which could be realized in more or less an innumerable number of ways while still being coherent and retaining a clear identity.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eJG:  Yes, and as a happy accident you were moving through that process of exploring new intersections of freedom and fixation precisely when Simon Reynell (Another Timbre label head) found his personal interests and tastes shifting to  a similarly imagined territory; your inaugural release on Another Timbre, Ist Gefallen.. was published in 2012- Reynell has said in a couple of interviews that that was the year he began to commit more of his focus for the Another Timbre catalogue to the open score possibilities. not to place too fine a point on this but how fortunate is the timing and confluence between the pools you were entering into as a composer and Reynell's curatorial interests as one of a very few publishers of experimental music?  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eMG: Yes, crossing paths with Simon at that time definitely was of great importance to me. His initial response to (and continuing interest) in my music was (and still is) very encouraging and initially came at quite a crucial point in my musical life. For a number of years, during the period when I first started experimenting and developing my music after more or less having quit playing jazz and free improvised music, I had had this feeling of increasingly becoming more and more isolated and that my new work seemed to fall in between categories, that there didn't seem to be too many obvious or existing contexts, platforms or communities for the music that I had in mind. So on the one hand starting Skogen and reaching out to and inviting sympathetic musicians like Angharad and Toshi that already were part of an international community of experimental musicians, and on the other hand establishing contact with Simon both proved very valuable in breaking this feeling of isolation that I had. And in a larger perspective I think Simon's work with Another Timbre has been very important in making these different kinds of music more visible and in creating a sense of community and belonging to listeners and practitioners alike. And in initiating and encouraging new projects he has been an invaluable catalytic force as well, of course.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eAnd as regards the idea or perspective of sentience in the context of music I have often felt and thought that sound and musical materials are very delicate matters that one must be very careful with. There is of course this indeed very well-known quote of Feldman's where he, when asked by Stockhausen what his secret is, answers that he doesn't push sounds around. And for me that very much goes for people as well, neither do I like to push people around nor do I myself like to be pushed around. So I guess my music perhaps to at least some extent may be considered as some sort of response to the delicacy of sound and music as well as people.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eJG: As I have been listening to your music I have been revisiting the journal writings of the Swiss poet and photographer Gustave Roud, specifically \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003eAir of Solitude\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003e - bear with me in providing some context for this linkage- in 2014 Jurg Frey was our house guest for a week during the preparations and rehearsals for the Wandelweiser festival I presented in St. Paul; one night he  talked enthusiastically about his regard for the writings of Roud, elaborating a little on the poet’s creative process and how that process resonated for Jurg as a composer. This sent me searching for Roud’s journals and poetry available in English translation- about which there is relatively little-much less commentary in English-  the salient aspects about Roud that I find in listening to your work of the past decade: Roud lived in one place, a family farm in Carrouge, from 11 years old to his death at age 79. He developed a regular practice of walking through the countryside with a journal, noting any and all variations in the landscapes-fluctuations in weather, the attendant seasonal changes, the fluctuations in his moods, perspective, et al. After many years of this practice, Roud wrote that at times these intimately familiar landscapes appeared as “elsewhere”, utterly changed by his close observation of them. In a journal entry about his melding with these landscapes he wrote, “…it enslaves us gently, in the manner of a symphony.” For decades Roud would lift passages from earlier journals and poems and enfold them into newer texts; this process creates, to my way of reading, work of both constant flux and a clear identity.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eSo it is with your compositions of the past decade: I set myself to listening through your eight releases in the eight years you’ve been published by AT, attuned to this idea of your folding and enfolding cells, fragments and canons in a lineage of pieces- clearly there are memories and materials that establish your “clear identity”, a “clearly articulated environment”, as you referred to it in an interview with Reynell. This genetic material has specific characteristics- threads of melancholia, dissolution, the claims of memory, pools of intervallic relationships with headwaters as divergent as Dowland and the American songbook. It seems as if, to some extent, you revisit and reframe familiar materials, which become elements of a new environment created by each newly rejoined or reconfigured ensemble. Maybe the familiar pools of melody and intervals are made “elsewhere” by the inclusion of improvisers like Toshi Nakamura.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eHenri-Frederic Amiel, a contemporary of Roud, said “Every landscape is a state of the spirit.” This all plays into why I told you I hear your compositions as a new sort of field recording. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e  \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMG: Yes, I haven't read Roud myself but Jürg has told me a little bit about his life and work and from your description of Roud's methods it sounds as if there might be some similarities, perhaps not as closely related or analogous to Roud's procedures as Jürg's own compositional practice as I have understood it but still related somehow. Even if I don't keep (and use) a journal or a sketchbook in the same way as Roud did or Jürg does, I guess there definitely still are these specific, recurring topics and patterns in my music that you so perceptively point out. Perhaps one could say that the individual pieces are different outcomes of more or less the same (or slowly evolving) gene pool, the same way that different takes of the same piece are outcomes of more or less the same conditions. And I guess that's very much how what we call style generally works, both in terms of individual style as well as in the sense of broader musical historical trends or perspectives: once certain conditions are established individual traits tend to even out a bit, at least when seen from a certain distance. But I think it's important to, if not to (re)invent the wheel, so at least to try to cultivate and treasure the sensibility and ability of experiencing something unknown arising from the seemingly well known. To me these are among the most joyful and thrilling musical experiences one could have, and the collective intelligence and sensibility of the musicians are indeed one of the most important prerequisites to actually make them happen.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eJG: To date-May 2020- you've released eight ensemble pieces on AT, with five different group configurations -the core unit of Skogen is expanded and elevated by various guest musicians from the realms of baroque music, noise and improvisation. Your intuitive aim- \"something unknown arising from the seemingly known\"- is realized within a collective of musical relationships extending back 15 years, as well as many completely new encounters.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eThis sort of experiment- layering and enfolding known and unknown musicians from disparate musical practices into scores with fixed and fragile, notated and malleable elements- has seldom been attempted in quite this manner. The risks are daunting- the risks of pastiche, of a diminution of the respective strengths of players confronting new intersections of style and substance- I think we're in accord on the idea that it is these very risks of failure that create something new, music against reproduction, as Phillip Larkin observed, \"like something almost being said.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eIn past interviews you've always cited the gifts and sensibilities of the ensemble members in realizing your pieces-I want to ask you to expand a little more on the collective experience, one you refer to as contingent, fragile and resting entirely on trust. How, from your perspective, does the ensemble work?   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eMG: Well, when it comes to how the ensembles work and what makes the music work, I must say it's always something somewhat mysterious about how things (sometimes quite suddenly) fall into place, particularly when working with new ensembles. That's something which very much escapes or transcends notation (at least in my particular case) and which very much is the result of just playing together, of getting acquainted with the materials and the specific dynamics of the actual ensemble, of cultivating a common practice where everyone gets familiar with the materials and find their own individual and particular ways of navigating them while at the same time getting attuned to the musical environment in its totality. And yes, I guess there is always a risk of failure and an element of danger to this almost ritualistic process of almost trying to conjure up or invoke the music. At the same time I must say that I feel quite confident in how it works: how the nature of the materials and the intelligence and the sensibility of the performers provide a rather dependable potential for the music to arise from.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eJG: Let Pass My Weary Guiltless Ghost extends the lineage of your scored environments; for the third time you’ve assembled a tentet for a recording. The collective sound is without clutter, with long passages of pointillism, whispers, undergrowth rustling, at once low-volume and highly dynamic. I am pleased you acknowledged the “somewhat mysterious” element of your composition. To single out just a few facets of the collective sound, I have to say how aware I am on this one of the brilliant colors of Ko Ishikawa’s sho and the subversive play of Toshi Nakamura. I’m not using subversive as a pejorative- Nakamura frequently adds sand and grit to an environment that is otherwise as lucid and brilliant as a mirror. Also, I hear the spirit of gamelan threading through your prior works and this one-this is seldom remarked on in the reviews I’ve seen.\u003cbr\u003eOf course the ensemble in toto sounds fantastic; to your ears, are there aspects of Let My Weary Ghost… that are distinctive from you earlier releases on Another Timbre?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eMG: Well, as you also pointed out I guess I also consider the new recording very much an outgrowth or continuation of our previous work. And I was of course very happy to be able to include Toshi, Ko, Angharad, Rhodri and Simon in the ensemble this time, they are all wonderful musicians and contribute greatly to the music in the ways that you describe.\u003cbr\u003eIt's also interesting that you notice something of a gamelan influence in my work. Even though I have never tried to use or relate to particular techniques or forms associated with Gamelan I have for many years had a very strong affection to Javanese Gamelan music in particular and have listened to it quite extensively on and off for a couple of decades or so. For a long time I have also had a fondness for Gagaku, another wonderful orchestral tradition which has inspired me greatly, even if I don't have too much technical knowledge about it. But even if my knowledge about these traditions is very limited, I do think they have been very influential to me anyhow, along with many other forms of music from different ages and geographical areas. I guess that my own work in certain respects perhaps may be considered something of an attempt to synthesise all these different experiences and affections that have become part of you, to try to resolve or integrate sometimes seemingly opposing tendencies into a coherent form, into some sort of oneness.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eJG: It’s been a pleasure to talk a little about your work after listening to it for a number of years; I want to leave off for now with a remark you made in your guest lecture at the New England Conservatory of Music last year-it seems apposite to these strange times; you said, “No grand theories on my part...(but) a simple desire to get to know this music a little bit better, of perhaps making oneself a little bit more at home in the world.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eMG: And thanks for taking your time listening to the music and coming up with such interesting perspectives, it's really been a pleasure on my part as well. Hope to see and hear from you soon again!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/let_pass.jpg?v=1751571464\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003eSkogen performing 'Let Pass My Weary Guiltless Ghost' at the Splitter Festival, Berlin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428693639482,"sku":"at156","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at156Granberg-LetPass.....jpg?v=1749641199"},{"product_id":"control-and-its-opposites","title":"Frank Denyer","description":"\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e1  \u003cstrong\u003eBroken Music   \u003c\/strong\u003e(1990)                           14:38\u003cbr\u003efor flute, contra-bassoon, melodica, cello, harp, banjo \u0026amp; 2 percussionists\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e2  \u003cstrong\u003eUnison 1  \u003c\/strong\u003e(1973)                                      5:44\u003cbr\u003eversion for female voice, flute, clarinet, violin \u0026amp; viola\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e3  \u003cstrong\u003eScreens   \u003c\/strong\u003e(2017\/18)                                14:31\u003cbr\u003efor female voice, flute, violin, viola, 2 percussionists \u0026amp; speaker\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e4  \u003cstrong\u003eUnison 3  \u003c\/strong\u003e(1973)                                      5:58\u003cbr\u003eversion for male voice, bass flute, clarinet, viola \u0026amp; cello\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e5-9  \u003cstrong\u003eFive Views of the Path   \u003c\/strong\u003e(2020\/21)    20:31\u003cbr\u003efor female voice, violin, three flutes, mandolin \u0026amp; 2 percussionists\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003eOctandre\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e Ensemble:\u003cbr\u003econductor: Jon Hargreaves\u003cbr\u003evoice:  Juliet Fraser \u0026amp; Joshua Ballance\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003eflutes:  Richard Craig, Audry Milheres, Ilze Ikse, Taylor MacLennan\u003cbr\u003ebassoon \u0026amp; contra-bassoon:  Patrick Bolton\u003cbr\u003eviolin:  Benjamin Marquise Gilmore\u003cbr\u003eviola: Richard Jones\u003cbr\u003ecello: Corentin Chassard\u003cbr\u003ebanjo \u0026amp; mandolin: Sam Cave\u003cbr\u003epercussion: Calum Huggan, Adam Cracknell \u0026amp; Angela Wai Nok Hui\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/FD_portrait_may_08_b_ac971e14-4c7c-4cd9-b600-2189c5d86585.jpg?v=1752405554\" alt=\"\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003eThere is a 10-page booklet about the music on the CD by Christian Mason, from which the following is an extract:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eAn Unfamiliar Terrain\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003eFrank Denyer’s music is full of questions, but never pretends to easy answers. Rather, it offers us a fluid space for imaginative reflection on the nature of music and the fragile condition of human culture more generally. Sometimes these questions are - or appear to be - benign ‘compositional questions’, such as how to create a particular blend of colour within an ensemble (as in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnisons\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e), or how to create subtle timbral changes through spatial disposition (as in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eScreens\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e), but behind such particular questions, which give their creative spark to individual pieces, there lurks a bigger and more troubling question, strikingly exemplified on this disc by the seemingly incongruous array of instruments that comprise\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eBroken Music\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eScreens\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eand\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eFive Views of the Path\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003eIt is a question of how to meaningfully cohere the diverse, and sometimes conflicting, raw elements of our contemporary awareness into an authentic - one might almost say truthful - musical expression, in the midst of a world where the very context of our artistic and cultural experience is so heavily mediated by coercive commercial and political forces that we can never be quite sure that quiet\/individual voices will even be heard, however urgent their message. This artistic quest is informed not only by Denyer’s sense of historical crisis within the tradition of Western composition, but by his extensive ethnomusicological fieldwork through which he has been in close contact with, and documented, traditional cultures which have since been largely obliterated by so-called ‘progress’. Such first-hand experience of barely-noticed cultural loss has undoubtedly strengthened Denyer’s resolve to continue the quest. As Bob Gilmore put it in 2003: “His whole concern with musical instruments, new, modified or nearly extinct, can perhaps be seen as a metaphor for the larger question of what can be salvaged, artistically, from the chaos of civilisation as we begin a new century.”  The century may not be so new now, but this need to re-evaluate the essentials of music-making through the lens of atypical resources continues to define Denyer’s ever-searching artistic attitude....\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003eThe works collected here span almost fifty years of creative activity, and a wide sonic palette, yet they are connected by a thread that has remained constant at the heart of Denyer’s music since the early 1970’s, namely melody. Denyer’s insistence on the primacy of the horizontal direction of music was in stark contrast to the prevailing musical environment when it first became a compositional preoccupation, as he explains: “Following some leads that came from writing and re-writing\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eA Book of Emblems and Songs\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eI found with the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnison\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eset that I had somehow strayed into, what seemed at the time, an unfamiliar musical terrain. Remember that at this stage I was just an innocent, tentatively trying to absorb this new situation and find my way about.”  This attraction to the possibilities of ‘unfamiliar terrain’ conveys itself, in the\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003eUnisons\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C9\"\u003e, through the timeless freshness of the melodic language, which eschews any sense of pre-determined structure in favour of an intangible quality where the melody seems to discover itself as it ebbs and flows, and occasionally - for brief moments - splits in two.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C17\"\u003eYou can read the whole of the booklet \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/booklet-for-frank-denyers-screens\"\u003ehere\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428942283066,"sku":"at220","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at220_Denyer_Screens.jpg?v=1752399158"},{"product_id":"meshes","title":"Magnus Granberg \u0026 Skogen","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eDisc One:\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cstrong\u003eIst gefallen in den Schnee\u003c\/strong\u003e'   (2010)                        61:10\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eDisc Two:\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cstrong\u003eDespairs Had Governed Me Too Long\u003c\/strong\u003e'    (2012)   56:45\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eMagnus Granberg, piano, clarinet\u003cbr\u003eErik Carlsson, percussion\u003cbr\u003eAngharad Davies, violin\u003cbr\u003eJohn Eriksson, vibraphone, marimba, crotales\u003cbr\u003eKo Ishikawa, sho  (disc two)\u003cbr\u003eAnna Lindal, violin\u003cbr\u003eToshimaru Nakamura, no-input mixing board\u003cbr\u003eHenrik Olsson, bowls, glasses\u003cbr\u003eLeo Svensson Sander, cello\u003cbr\u003ePetter Wastberg, contact microphones, objects\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/wp116001c5_05_06.jpg?v=1752398065\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eInterview with Magnus Granberg\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eon release of ‘Ist gefallen in den Schnee’ (2010)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eFirst of all where do the ideas for the piece come from?  I know that Schubert was important in some way, but don’t know how. Could you explain this?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eThe way the piece relates to Schubert is that the rhythmic material as well some other temporal proportions are derived from two different songs from Schubert's well known (well, that's an obvious understatement!) song cycle\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C24\"\u003eDie Winterreise\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003e; the title of the piece, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C24\"\u003eIst gefallen in den Schnee\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003e, is a text fragment derived from one of these songs. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eThe tonal material, on the other hand, is derived from a jazz song, which one I have actually forgotten. The rhythmic as well as the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003etonal material is then transformed by means of different methods, in some cases rather mildly, in other cases rather heavily.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eSo, why did I choose to do like this when writing the piece? For a couple of different reasons, I think. For me it's a very concrete way of relating to and at the same time transcending musics that have, in one way or the other, been of a certain importance to me. Coming more or less from a working class background as I do, choosing Schubert is a way to approach a music that I haven't really have had access to (but which I somehow have come to like), without giving in to it fully. Jazz, on the other hand, is more or less what I grew up listening to, so partially basing the piece on a jazz song is a simple way to relate to that heritage without reproducing the actual music. It's obviously also a (perhaps both naïve and pretentious) way of trying try to reconcile musics with different social connotations, and a way to reconcile oneself with history and the contemporary world. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C25\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eThat’s interesting because listening to it without knowing this, I don’t think of either Schubert or jazz.  The music it reminds me of most is Feldman – though obviously as a kind of improvised or semi-improvised re-working of Feldman’s sound.  Can you explain to what extent the piece was composed or improvised, and whether Feldman is in there at all?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eYes, it's more or less impossible to identify the source material, the Schubert songs and the jazz music are very much to be found in the subtexts, but in a very concrete way, though. The musics and ideas of the composers associated with the so called New York School have, among many other things, also been very influential and dear to me. The early music of  Morton Feldman was probably the first modern classical music I could thoroughly relate to when I first heard it in my late teens; it seemed informal and at the same time very much open to the outside world, even more so than Cage's music, which I of course still love as well!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eRegarding the piece on the record, it is an attempt to thoroughly integrate composition and improvisation. In my role as a composer I provide different pools of material (pitches, rhythms, timbres, melodic fragments, chords etc), suggestions regarding how to treat the material and a temporal structure which regulates which pool of material should be used when. Perhaps one could say that I provide a potential which could be realized in innumerable ways, but the actual realizations are always the result of what decisions the musicians make throughout the piece; formal differentiation occurs spontaneously as a result of an improvisational process.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C26\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eDuration is another aspect of the piece that reminded me of Feldman. It’s unusual to have a single movement piece, whether composed or improvised, that lasts over an hour.  And for me there’s a similar sense as in Feldman of hearing patterns slowly unfold rather than having dramatic changes or developments across the piece.  Is duration a factor that you were consciously addressing?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eWell, duration is quite an important factor in our music in that it allows certain things to happen or potentials to be realised that probably wouldn't occur within a shorter time span. The totality of all different factors constituting the music at the particular time when playing and\/or listening is to me mainly a sense of spatiality, though: everything which takes place or even that could take place but actually does not during that particular time are all part of that experience. When I first formed Skogen (which is Swedish and translates as “The Forest” or The Woods”) I also had a feeling and an idea that the music should be like an environment, perhaps a forest in which inhabitants with different characteristics could move freely in accordance with the environment and their own and each other's properties and abilities; the piece, the time and the space could be the forest and the musicians its inhabitants.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eYes, I was going to ask what Skogen meant.  The ‘environment’ of the group on this occasion involves several Swedish musicians, but also Toshi Nakamura and Angharad Davies.  How did this come about – and is the Swedish core of the group consistent, or do different musicians come and go within that as well?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eI had known and admired Toshi's work since the beginning of the 2000s, and Erik and Henrik (the two percussionists in Skogen) had also made a tour of Sweden in 2008 together with Toshi and Tetuzi Akiyama, so there was already some sort of connection there. The first time I heard Angharad must have been on the album\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C24\"\u003eEndspace\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etogether with Tisha Mukarji, which was released on your label. I had also heard some marvellous solo violin pieces that thoroughly convinced me that Angharad's playing would fit very well with the ensemble, so I simply asked her to join us. The core of the ensemble has so far consisted of five Swedish musicians, but on this occasion was enlarged with the addition of another two wonderful Swedish musicians -  violinist Anna Lindal and vibraphone player John Eriksson – and will continue as an ensemble of nine in the future.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eI listened to the disc again today, and it struck me that although the dominant feel of the piece is one of  beauty, at times different players – perhaps especially Toshi Nakamura and Petter Wästberg – are gently pushing against that and playing a subversive role.  That tension between an almost static beauty, and an energy that pushes the music along really works for me.  As the composer, do you see it like this at all? \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C27\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eI think that's a correct observation, the roles of Petter and Toshi are very free indeed. They were provided with some suggestions and some rather vague materials that they could choose to relate to if they wanted to, but their primary function is one of free improvisation. Apart from that, all players are provided with more or less specified materials and suggestions on how to treat them and are also encouraged to choose how much they would like to adhere to them and how and when to deviate from them. The players all make different choices at different times, all in accordance with their personal inclinations as well as how the music is shaped through the dynamics of group improvisation. I myself, for example, mostly tend to limit the elements of improvisation to what material is played when, how many times the materials are repeated, how notes are accentuated, minor changes in tempo, slight fragmentations and permutations of the materials et cetera. Other players obviously and happily make other choices, which makes the music come alive in ways I wouldn't have been able to come up with myself. To take part in how something rather well known is transcended and transformed into something previously unknown is a blissful and rewarding experience quite central to how and why I choose to make music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C25\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eMy feeling is that improvising in large groups doesn’t generally work very well, and I usually much prefer small groups.  Now\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C28\"\u003e Ist gefallen in den Schnee \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C22\"\u003eis largely composed and so avoids the messiness that large group improvisation often involves, but – as you seem to be expanding the Skogen group - I’m interested to know if you generally prefer working with larger ensembles?  Or do you work in small group projects as well?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eWell, Skogen has up until recently mainly been working as a quintet, but I myself have in the last few years felt an increasing inclination for conceiving and taking part in a musical environment made up of a larger number of independent and interdependent voices. I would very much try to develop these things further, but recently I have also been writing some music for somewhat smaller ensembles in which I will be playing the clarinet. In general, considerations regarding the size of the ensembles in improvised and other non-institutionalised forms of contemporary music are to a large extent also a question of funding, or perhaps rather a lack of funding: it is, quite simply, quite difficult to gather many people in the same place at the same time (let alone go on tour with them!) when there is no economic foundation which allows you to. The working conditions are, generally speaking, obviously very different from, say, operas or symphony orchestras...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Storskogen_focused_95d0e766-78c3-460c-9e61-3a9b251331dc_480x480.jpg?v=1752398256\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C23\"\u003eReviews\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003e“Ist gefallen in den Schnee\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003e, lasting sixty-one minutes, consists entirely of a November 2010 recording of the title composition by Magnus Granberg. For the recording Granberg's group Skogen—in which he plays piano—is expanded to a nonet including two non-Swedish guest musicians, Angarad Davies on violin and Toshimaru Nakamura on his instrument of choice, the no-input mixing board. Strings, vibraphone, percussion, bowls and glasses plus electronics complete the group's line-up, giving it a soundscape that extends way beyond that of a chamber group.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eOpening with delicate, carefully-spaced piano notes, the composition initially sounds most reminiscent of Morton Feldman. Remarkably, Granberg himself says its rhythmic material and other temporal proportions are derived from two different songs from Schubert's song cycle \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003eDie Winterreise\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"apple-converted-space-C\"\u003e (the album title is definitely a line from one of its songs, \"Wasserflut\"). Its tonal material, however, is derived from a jazz song that he has forgotten. If the composer had not dropped such clues, those sources would not be at all apparent from the music itself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eThe piece subtly combines composition and improvisation. Granberg comments, \"Perhaps one could say that I provide a potential which could be realized in innumerable ways, but the actual realizations are always the result of what decisions the musicians make throughout the piece; formal differentiation occurs spontaneously as a result of an improvisational process.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P-P0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eWith any nine-member ensemble that includes improvisation, there will always be the risk that the players will get in each other's way or that the music degenerates into a series of individual contributions leading to cacophony overall. Granberg's composition deftly manages to sidestep these potential problems, avoiding any feeling of clutter or messiness, while achieving a beautiful sense of space, openness and tranquility. The composer's own piano playing is central to that—his economical contributions set an example to the other players and act as the backbone of the piece.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-_Web_-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C\"\u003eThe ringing sounds of Henrik Olsson's bowls and glasses plus the electronic tones from Nakamura and Petter Wästberg contrast effectively with the ensemble's conventional instruments while being entirely consistent with the mood of the piece and the sound of the rest of the group. Across its duration, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Emphasis-C\"\u003eIst gefallen in den Schnee\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"apple-converted-space-C\"\u003e creates its own rules and logic, resulting in a composition that demands to be heard again and again. Sublime.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C0\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Eyles\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-_Web_-C-C1\"\u003eAll About Jazz\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C31\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003e“Rarely has a title been as precise as for this album, capturing a feeling in mid-phrase \"has fallen in the snow\", offering possibly one of the most delightful and lightest musical dishes you may have consumed ever.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003eMagnus Granberg takes the lead on piano, using sparse notes as the reference for the other musicians who intervene with the beauty and transparance of single snow flakes, single-toned, well-paced and creating an atmosphere of perfect tranquility and peace.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003eThe album contains one single track, lasting just over an hour, and despite its minimalism is not boring for one second. On a superficial level you might say that nothing much happens, but quite the contrary is true, nothing is ever the same, as the partly composed piece evolves with subtle and sometimes unexpected sounds. As with other bands using the same approach, such as \"Dans Les Arbres\", \"Silencers\" or \"Mural\", the musicians' utter instrumental control and restraint are astonishing, resulting in this wonderful coherence that is the result of high level common improvisation, made interesting because of the real intensity of the created soundscapes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003eAgain, as with lots of new music in the past decades, Scandinavian musicians offer us new aural experiences, and indeed very welcoming ones. Highly recommended!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C34\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStef\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C35\"\u003eFree Jazz\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C31\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C36\"\u003eIst gefallen in den Schnee\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a single, hour long composition scored by Magnus Granberg and performed by the group Skogen, which on this occasion consisted of nine musicians, seven of them Swedish and two of them (Toshimau Nakaumra playing no-input mixer and Angharad Davies playing violin) guest musicians visiting the country. The Swedish line up were, Anna Lindal, (violin) Leo Svensson Sander, (cello) John Eriksson, (vibraphone and crotales) Erik Carlsson, (selected percussion) Henrik Olsson, (bowls and glasses) Petter Wastberg (objects, contact mics and mixing board) and Granberg himself playing piano. In an in-depth interview about the composition at the AT website, Granberg states that the score uses two points of source material; a couple of Schubert’s songs, which he has somehow used to drive the rhythmic sections of the composition, and a jazz melody, from which he has derived the tonal parts. Exactly how he has done this is far from clear, and before I had read the interview I was in firm agreement with the AT label owner Simon Reynell’s viewpoint that the music seems to be a kind of collision between the music of Morton Feldman and an intervening improvised sense of disruption.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003eThe music is extremely lovely to listen to, a really nice balance between semi-classical instrumentation and the abstraction of raw electronics. Ist gefallen in den Schnee (the title apparently comes from a line in a Schubert song and might translate to Is fallen in the snow) opens with a slow, clockwork like structure of chiming percussion and plucked strings mixed with twittering electronics from (I think) Nakamura. Immediately I think of Feldman, and when the violin strings join the chains of simple, slowly picked out piano the resemblance is even more striking, but all along the chamber feel of the music is disrupted slightly by the electronics, which are apparently much more loosely scored for than the other parts, so allowing the improvisatory qualities of these musicians to interact with an otherwise slowly turning, lethargic but steady rhythmic pulse. It really does feel like a late Feldman work with electronic accompaniment, and that’s not a bad thing at all in my opinion.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C33\"\u003eAs the piece slowly develops it becomes more dense, with less room for silence and individual sounds less easy to pick out and focus upon, but the sense of precise timing very apparent and the slow pace maintained immaculately throughout, even when the thickness of the varying sounds together could prosily have lead to an excited quickening of the pace. Several of the musicians’ inputs are familiar to me; Carlsson’s particular use of circular percussive chimes, the lightness of Angharad Davies’ violin stroke, the filigree scribbles of Toshi Nakamura behind a mixing board, but this CD isn’t about individual voices but rather a carefully structured work for a nine piece group that maintain a sense of control throughout, even with some of their input entirely improvised. There are some gloriously beautiful moments. At nine minutes in when the piano mixes its way through some glowing cyclical percussion is one such moment to savour, but they actually come thick, if not fast. While first listening to this music a couple of weeks back I found myself asking myself why the two electronics musicians were here on this CD, when their role seems only ever to be about disrupting what might otherwise be a very typically New York School piece of composition. I didn’t think this way for too long though, as I soon realised that the real intrigue in this music comes from the way two musical worlds seem to collide, the almost regimentally arranged acoustic instruments and the free flowing electronics. While the feedback and fizzing remain very slightly in the background throughout and never try and push to the acoustic sounds out of the way their presence here is a telling one, reminding us that we aren’t listening to something tightly dictated but an experiment in such a collision of approaches and outcomes. The end result of all of this is a quite enchanting, often intrinsically fascinating hour of music that questions itself as much as it challenges the individual taste of its listenership. Lovely stuff, quite beautiful but open to examining exactly that notion about itself.“     \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C34\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRichard Pinnell\u003c\/strong\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C35\"\u003eThe Watchful Ear\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428945658170,"sku":"at4771x2","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at4771_Granberg_Skogen.jpg?v=1752397346"},{"product_id":"magnus-granberg-how-lonely-sits-the-city-skogen","title":"Magnus Granberg","description":"\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eMagnus Granberg  ‘How Lonely Sits the City?’\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e (2020)    54:52\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eSkogen:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eAnna Lindal \u0026amp; Eva Lindal (violins)    Stina Hellberg Agback (harp)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eMagnus Granberg (prepared piano)    John Eriksson (vibraphone \u0026amp; glockenspiel)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eHenrik Olsson (objects, friction, piezo)   Erik Carlsson (percussion)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/magnusgranberg-1-655x509-912131822_480x480.jpg?v=1751535878\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eInterview with Magnus Granberg\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eCan you tell us about 'How Lonely Sits the City'.  Where does the title come from, and are you adapting\/transforming existing musical pieces in the composition, as you have in previous pieces?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eIn September 2019 I was asked by cellist Leo Svensson Sander and harpist Stina Hellberg Agback if I would be interested participating in a project together with them, violinist Eva Lindal and a couple of visual artists, a poet and a scenographer, which would deal with questions concerning how to make art in times of crisis, something I gladly and curiously accepted. The project would take Messiaen's ’Quatuor pour la fin de temps’ and its genesis, creation and historical context as a point of departure when reflecting on questions on how and why to make art in our present time and its escalating climate crisis. The project received some funding from a couple of Swedish institutions and we were just about to start working when the pandemic quite suddenly broke out in late February or early March 2020. All of a sudden we found ourselves in a situation which affected our working conditions more profoundly than we ever had expected in the short term and which not only had us reflect on the above mentioned questions but rather forced us to quickly adapt to the changing situation. So at the time when I was about to start writing some music for the project, societies all over the world were more or less closing down and I was quite struck by all these pictures of more or less deserted or abandoned cities from all over the world that were being broadcast and reproduced during the initial period of the pandemic. So, quite inevitably the first verse of the book of Lamentations came to mind, ”How lonely sits the city that was full of people!”, a text which of course also has been set to music innumerable times throughout history and which also became the title of my piece. So with these two different points of departure, Messiaen on the one hand and the Lamentations on the other, I started to conceive of the piece and in the end I ended up using mainly tonal material (basically a few scalar motions which I transformed into new modes) but also a couple of rhythmic cells from Messiaen’s piece, and some further rhythmic materials from Thomas Tallis’s and William Byrd’s different takes on the Lamentations of Jeremiah as points of departure for generating new musical materials. When starting to conceive the piece I was also very touched and inspired by the recurring (and always slightly altered, if I remember correctly) melody played by the flugelhorn in Stravinsky’s Threni, which has some sort of counterpart in an extended melody in slightly shifting meters in my piece as well. The original version of the piece was written for a quartet consisting of violinist Eva Lindal, cellist Leo Svensson Sander, harpist Stina Hellberg Agback and myself on piano, but since we also wanted to do something with Skogen during the pandemic I just decided to write some additional parts for us to play and record.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eThat’s a remarkable circumstance, with the theme of the artistic project turning out to be prophetic. I don’t think of your music as containing, or being engaged with, any kind of social commentary, but in this case do you think that the sense of societal crisis did affect the music you were writing in some way (other than the pieces it uses as its source)?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eNo, I’m generally quite sceptical and doubtful when it comes to music's need or even ability to convey or subordinate to these kinds of extramusical concerns in a time where at least I have a hard time seeing that there would be anything even close to a general agreement on the literal meaning or effect of certain musical notes, modes, tropes, gestures or structures etc, as compared to, say, the Affektenlehre of the Baroque era or the philosophy and aesthetics of North Indian music, for example. From my perspective I think any social or political implications perhaps rather would be found in how the music itself\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C2\"\u003eworks\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003e; how it is organised, what the relations are between composers, conductors and musicians and the position of the music and its practitioners within a wider social context. And from an ecological perspective I guess that perhaps quite simply would translate to how music making in all its various aspects relates to nature and to the use of natural resources, for example.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eThe line-up for Skogen in this piece is slightly smaller than in other pieces you have written for the ensemble. Is that simply an effect of the Covid pandemic, or are you now more interested in smaller groups developing your music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eYes, the pandemic did affect our work in various ways. Inviting any of our international friends didn’t seem like an option for obvious reasons and in the end we also had to postpone the recording twice due to various incidents and restrictions pertaining to the pandemic, we also ended up being a smaller ensemble on the recording than initially planned. But it was also a great joy to get the possibility to invite Swedish violinist Eva Lindal and harpist Stina Hellberg Agback to the ensemble, something which resulted in a very fruitful and slightly different dynamic, I think.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C3\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eAside from this particular project, how has the pandemic affected you as a musician and composer?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eIn terms of economy, the pandemic hasn’t affected me too badly, there has been some governmental support for the arts and I have also been able to go to my day job (in an antiquarian bookstore) as usual. But I guess the pandemic definitely has made me abstain from planning too many and too extensive projects and many (most) of the projects that\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C2\"\u003ehave\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebeen planned have also been postponed, canceled or changed in various ways and multiple times. But I have at least been trying to think, compose, play and record as much as the circumstances have allowed, and I do hope and think that these circumstances eventually may help us reflect upon and reconsider our work in ways that might turn out quite productive in the long run.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C1\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C\"\u003eYour music, and the titles of your pieces, always evoke a mood of melancholy. I'm also very drawn to that, and the Another Timbre catalogue is full of melancholic music. Do you have any ideas as to what the pull of melancholy in music is?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C1\"\u003eMelancholy is a very old concept with shifting meanings and connotations throughout the ages, and I guess what might evoke a feeling of melancholy in one individual may as well stir feelings of sentimentality or irritation in others. But if we choose to look upon melancholy as an expression or response to loss (as in Freud, for example), I think Rúmí captures the pull of melancholy in music (and its dual and paradoxical capacity of on the one hand stirring pain while at the same time relieving it) very well in his introduction to the Mathnawí, here in Reynold Nicholson’s translation:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C1\"\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C3\"\u003eListen to the reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations - Saying, ”Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, my lament hath caused man and woman to moan\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C1\"\u003e.” And: ”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C3\"\u003eThe reed is the comrade of everyone who has been parted from a friend: its strains pierced our hearts. Who ever saw a poison and antidote like the reed?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C1\"\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C1\"\u003eAnd I think the concept of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C3\"\u003eekstasis\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-C-C1\"\u003e, of standing outside oneself, of forgetting oneself and, so to say, revert to the reed-bed, is quite closely related to the concept of melancholy, at least in Rúmí. And in a way I guess that’s very much how music might work as well: at best it makes you forget about yourself and helps you become part of larger, more encompassing and selfless experience, in consequence relieving you of a sense of loss and melancholy. And the act of playing and the playfulness involved in the collective music making is essentially a very joyful experience, I think.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51428985274682,"sku":"at188","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at188frontcover.jpg?v=1749648028"},{"product_id":"magnus-granberg-holde-traume-kehret-wieder-nattens-inbrott-skogen","title":"Magnus Granberg","description":"\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eDisc One  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHolde Träume, kehret wieder!\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eVersion for quartet\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e by Nattens inbrott      44:44\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eVilde Sandve Alnaes, violin      Inga Margrete Aas, double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eMagnus Granberg, prepared piano     Erik Carlsson, percussion\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eDisc Two\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHolde Träume, kehret wieder!\u003c\/strong\u003e   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eVersion for septet\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003e by Skogen      45:01\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eAnna Lindal, violin    Leo Svensson Sander, cello   Stina Hellberg Agback, harp\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eErik Carlsson, percussion    \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C10\"\u003eMagnus Granberg, prepared piano   \u003cbr\u003eHenrik Olsson, objects, friction   Petter Wästberg, objects, contact mics\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Granberg_Magnus_480x480.jpg?v=1751461123\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eInterview with Magnus Granberg\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eCan you tell us about the title; where does it come from and what is its significance?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003e  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eThe title is culled from the last line of a poem by Matthäus von Collin which was set to music by Franz Schubert and published in 1825 under the title ’Nacht und Träume’. The title, ’Holde Träume, kehret wieder!’ could be translated to ’sweet dreams, come back!’ or ’fair dreams, return!’ (Richard Wigmore’s translation). It’s a lovely song, which in its most obvious and literal interpretation is about night and dreams and the longing for the night and the dreams to return when waking up to a new day. After having finished the piece I also by chance realised that ’Nacht und Träume’ also is the title of one of Beckett’s late, minimal (and in this particular case more or less wordless) plays for television, in which the last line of the song is first hummed and then silently sung by a male voice, possibly by the main (or even sole) character if I remember correctly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eSchubert as reconfigured by Beckett isn’t a bad description of your music! I feel there’s an underlying romanticism, but it coexists with, or perhaps is buried deep beneath, a late modernist sensibility that is melancholic bordering on despair.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eYes, that’s actually quite a good description and analysis of my music, I guess! I have of course constantly been returning to Schubert over the years and reading Beckett (particularly his late prose works such as ’Company, ’Worstward Ho’ and ’Ill Seen, Ill Said’) was certainly of great importance and even something of a revelation to me in the early 2000s when I made my first attempts to reorient aesthetically after having lost faith in playing jazz and playing the saxophone.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn most of your compositions, a lot of the music is derived by substantially re-working existing pieces. Is this the case here too, and if so, what is the source material? \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eYes, listening to and being very moved by ’Nacht und Träume’ served as an impetus to write something myself, and the song itself accordingly served as a starting point for the new piece. That being said, there are no extensive quotations except for the use of the rhythmic structure of the last line of the song. Apart from that the materials of the song mainly served as a point of departure: rhythmic phrases were fragmented and divided into tiny cells that were treated and recombined in various ways, and parts of the tonal structure were used as a point of departure when creating a new, modal framework for the piece.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eAs ever, there is so much improvisational input that - although I could easily identify both realisations as being your music - I don't think that I could have identified them as being the same piece.  That may just be due to my lack of musical training, but does it matter in any way?  Do you want your compositions to be identifiable as individual pieces, or are you happy for them to become part of a large but somewhat undifferentiated pool of music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eWell, that hasn’t really been that important to me so far. On the contrary I have often considered the individual pieces to be landscapes which could be perceived very differently depending on whom is traveling through them and how and when it is done, since there are so many (innumerable) ways of traversing them. And in a way I have also often considered the individual pieces all to be a part of a larger but very similar landscape, or perhaps like different outcomes of the same (or slowly evolving) genetic constitution, to use another analogy. Lately though, I have been experimenting with other ways of approaching the materials, trying to explore other potentials and organisational dynamics in the music which are situated on different positions of the spectrum of coherency and consistency on the one hand, and indeterminacy and individual and collective freedoms on the other. This is partly related to the question of writing music for musicians and ensembles with different schoolings and trajectories in and through music in a way which feels comfortable for the musicians while at the same time hopefully yielding a consistent, coherent, lively and interesting result, but also to the question of exploring inherent potentials in the materials themselves and the many possible ways of organising them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eThis is a double album, consisting of two different realisations of 'Holde Traume', a septet version by Skogen, and a more minimal version by the Nattens inbrott quartet. Did you envisage this possibility of two different ensembles realising the piece for different instrumentation from the start of the project, or was it something that happened by chance?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eWell, even if that’s almost always a latent or tacit possibility, I actually originally wrote the piece in order to have something to play with Nattens inbrott, a new quartet with myself, percussionist Erik Carlsson and two fabulous Norwegian string players, violinist Vilde Sandve Alnaes and double bass player Inga Margrete Aas, perhaps best known from their brilliant string duo Vilde \u0026amp; Inga. Around the same time (which was still during the pandemic) I realized that we should try do something with Skogen as well, but since I didn’t have the time to write a new piece, I simply decided that it perhaps could be interesting to hear how the piece would turn out when being played in two different settings and by partly different musicians. So I simply wrote some additional parts for Skogen and then we recorded the two different versions on two different occasions with just a few weeks in between, both being recorded at Atlantis here in Stockholm.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eThat’s interesting.  Did Vilde \u0026amp; Inga approach you about forming the quartet, or did you suggest it to them? (And what does Nattens inbrott mean, by the way?)  Obviously the musicians in Skogen know your work intimately, and have played a role in the way it has developed over the years, but the Nattens inbrott quartet also sound as if they’ve been playing your music for a long time. They’re extraordinarily accomplished, so that listening to the two realisations blind, I would be hard-pressed to say whether the quartet or septet were playing your music for the first time.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eNo, it was I who approached them. After having heard a few of their recordings on the internet over the years and finally hearing them play an incredible concert at Rönnells Antikvariat in Stockholm (which also happens to be where my day job is at) I was thoroughly and emphatically convinced that they would be a perfect match for my music. We have actually just played one concert yet (partly due to the pandemic) which took place the day before the studio recording, but we hope to be able to play a little bit more the forthcoming years. ’Nattens inbrott’ means ’the break of night’, which of course seems to fit the nocturnal qualities of the music as well as the source materials of the piece itself rather well, I guess.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C\"\u003eAs far as you're concerned, would it be valid for ensembles to take other scores of yours and make realisations using just some of the parts? Is this something that has happened already?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-F_rval-A-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"F_rval-A-C-C0\"\u003eYes, that is perfectly possible and I guess that has more or less already happened. But if so, I quite often want to adapt the pieces gently in terms of which parts may or should be used, and if the instrumentation differs slightly, I prefer to adapt and revise appropriate parts for the new instruments.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51429109924154,"sku":"at225x2","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at225x2MagnusGranbergHoldeTraume.jpg?v=1749649961"},{"product_id":"timothy-mccormack-mine-but-for-its-sumblimation","title":"Timothy McCormack","description":"\u003ch3 class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg style=\"margin-bottom: 16px; float: none; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/Konzert_MaM_TM-23-3000_1_480x480.jpg?v=1751469718\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch2 style=\"text-align: center;\" class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C6\"\u003eInterview with Timothy McCormack\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eFirst could you tell us about the piece. How did it come about, and have you written long piano solos before? \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eI have written long solo pieces before - for a number of years now my work has operated on a certain expansive order of form and time - though never a piano solo before this one. In fact, I had avoided the instrument very intentionally, until I discovered a strange chord. Between 2012-2016 I wrote a few chamber pieces that included piano, and in each of them, this same chord found its way in. But I resisted whatever it was trying to tell me, as at the time I believed my work to speak only a language of lines, not of points; of unbroken sounds that have the capacity to be morphed and modulated (in timbre, dynamics, degrees of noise, etc…) smoothly and continuously. So I didn’t believe the piano had much to offer me, or I was afraid of confronting what it might do to my music if I did. Secondly, at the time, I simply did not think that I was interested in tone or interval or harmony; I was far more interested in noise and morphology. So the fact that a certain chord seemed so compelling to some unvisited part of my brain disrupted what I thought was fundamentally the identity of my music. But eventually, with some encouragement of friends and collaborators, this chord brought forth the possibility of a piano solo. But it still took some time to accept the intervention. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eSo it started with a chord, but it took the COVID pandemic to bring me to actually start writing this piece. It was a very spontaneous decision to actually commit to it, made months into the pandemic, when we were all trying new things. Some of us started baking sourdough bread; I wrote a piano solo. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eI had intended for this piece to be a small side-project, but as I worked on it, and as I started to grasp exactly what was happening to my music through this piece, it eventually became the sole focus of an entire year of composition. I had been working on the piece for about a month before I realized that I was really writing this piece for Jack Yarbrough. The heightened wager the piece places on touch, on affect, but also on form; on sensitivity to mechanism and balance in one register of the instrument versus in another… the piece, or what it was shaping up to be, was exactly mapped onto Jack’s very idiosyncratic and exacting and sensitive playing. Jack’s intervention and the nature of our collaboration heightened the sense that what was happening here was actually rather quite heavy and devastating. We went there together, we discovered this place together. It was a situation of total trust and mutual pushing and learning. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eIn the end,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003emine but for its sublimation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e, and Jack Yarbrough, changed my music. I was a different person before writing this piece than I was after. By embracing the piano as such (in that its vernacular is one of points rather than lines, of tone rather than of noise) I took risks I never had before, and I felt more in communion with pure form than I had ever felt before within a compositional process. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eThe piece obviously uses a lot of repetition, and a good deal of long resonance. Is that typical of your music?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eThat there is repetition is objectively true. However, it does not feel like repetition to me - upon reading the question I had to reflect as to whether there was any repetition in the piece at all, before immediately realizing that, yes, it’s all over the place. But it is never repetition as such; it is always a sleight of hand at service to formal and morphological change. The piece employs repetition so as to covertly enact development and transformation into other spaces. For example, the very beginning of the piece is perhaps its most discretely repetitive. However, the repetitions are on an extremely local level: it is either this-or-that, low C-sharp or high D-sharp (always with a diatonic cluster in between). It is not a figure or a gesture that is being repeated, it is only a vacillation between two points. So the listener’s attention is drawn to this local teetering; meanwhile, eventually, within this wavering pulse the repetition establishes, changes begin to happen, and things begin to drift upwards. We are maybe aware of that, but it subtly brings us to a register and a behavior that is eventually very different from where we began. The discrete repetitions are washed out, but we cannot place when that happened. The entire piece operates through these formal mechanisms: either baiting us with local-level microvariation between impulses so as to gradually, unobtrusively bend the material elsewhere on a more global level, or, sometimes, devastatingly, to lull us into a sustained state only to encounter a moment of conclusive and sudden severing of that state into the next. But there is always a connection, a bridge between these states; something always resonates through a process or a severing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eWhich brings us to the second part of your question: resonance. Resonance was part of my music before this piece insofar as it is a mechanism of saturation. However, resonance as such - as something that decays but also blooms within that decay; as something that is distinct from but follows from attack, and is given space to be attended to by a listener - this is new for me. My work before this piece was much more dependent on sustain. And while\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003emine but for its sublimation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003efinds its way to sustained states, it is overwhelmingly about resonance, as well as the idea that attack and touch are the provenance of resonance. We hear this in the piece’s harnessing of register. For more than half of the piece, material is kept in very delineated registeral vectors: First in the middle\/upper-middle, then in the icy highest register, then a brief return to the middle (somewhat lower) so as to pivot into the depths. Each of these spaces has a completely distinct behavior of resonance, and the piece induces our ears into attending to each space as a distinct and unique vibratory sensation before establishing a counterpoint between these resonant spaces.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eFor the pianist, the resonating space is an extremely vulnerable place. There is literally nowhere to hide. The conditioning of that resonance can only occur before the resonance, through the intention brought to an attack. We never touch resonance; we only touch the attack, and the instrument answers with resonance. One’s fingers initiate an attack, but in the resonance is only one’s fingerprint. It is so vulnerable to not be able to change a thing, to accept what has happened and to sit with that throughout a decay. This is why I realized that I was actually writing this piece for Jack Yarbrough: he has a relationship with touch that I have never quite encountered before, and I think that’s because he has developed a deep relationship with the resonance of the piano, and with the piano as agentic, generous, responsive collaborator.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eWhat about the title? What does this refer to, and how does it relate to the music itself?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eThe ‘sublimation’ of the title refers both to transference of energy in sound production, as well as to an erotics of form enacted by the piece over its duration. ‘Sublimation’ as the passing of matter from a solid state directly into a vaporous state, which addresses my previous statements on resonance. Through the mediating agent of the piano itself, the performer’s attack is transferred immediately into resonance; their touch immediately into vibration. In idiomatic playing, one touches the piano, but never its sound; your fingers on the keys, but only ever one’s fingerprints in the sound. Therefore, the sound I generate on a piano is only ever mine\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003ebut for\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eits sublimation into resonance and vibration. The entire piece is a negotiation of this fact, and it takes it further and further into situations in which this proposition becomes problematized. The first half has the performer playing on the keys, never “touching the sound.” In one crucial and severing moment, the piece pivots into a world of harmonics, the production of which does have the performer intervening on their own attack by touching with one hand the vibrating string at specific nodal points at the moment that the other hand depresses a corresponding key: touch the string so as to condition its vibration. Beyond that, EBows creep into the room, creating vibration without the initiating attack and without the necessity of touch: a total sublimation into vapour. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003eBut there is also a less haptic, more experiential sublimation happening at the order of form. In a number of formal maneuvers, the piece brings us to a place. The motion from one register to another; the navigation of different viscosities of harmony and texture; the various and improbable emergences of motive, melody, or harmony; in that one type of intonation is eventually contracted by another; the shifting of an earthly, counted sensation of time to a more saturating, subsuming sense of time; etc… The piece is a delicate but assured balance of proportion and event which, I hope, induces a state of sunken attention in the listener. There is an inevitability to where we arrive at any given moment, but I don’t believe any of these arrivals are particularly anticipated. The listener submits to the form of the piece, and this submission is a powerful and intense state of attention to find ourselves brought to. One listener shared their experience thusly: “I want to be this piece; or I want the piece to happen to me; I want to be the piano.” And this is what I mean by an erotics of form; a sonic and formal discourse that induces in the listener a desire not to simply listen but to\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003ebe the thing itself\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e. Listening as submission as inscendence: to sink into a thing, to nest, burrow, and be subsumed. This experience is ours,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C13\"\u003ebut for its sublimation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C12\"\u003e. It is vibrations \u0026amp; resonances in space over time: we cannot touch it (the sound, the experience); we can only desire towards it. I like accessing this space, but its provenance is ultimately not sound, but form. Sound cannot touch form; it can only articulate it. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eCan you tell us about your background in music; where you studied, and what stands out for you in what you've done previously?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eI started composing when I was perhaps around 13 years old as a result of learning instruments. I had already started taking lessons in or teaching myself percussion, flute, and (appropriately) piano, and I think the compulsion to write for these instruments was a natural extension of learning them. Before finishing high school, I would also learn guitar, oboe, and bassoon, the last of these somehow becoming my primary instrument. I’m not sure I would have started composing if I had just stuck to one instrument. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eI did my undergrad at Oberlin Conservatory, after which I went on to Huddersfield University for an MPhil, and finally my PhD at Harvard. After Harvard, I joined the composition faculty at Boston Conservatory, and now I’m at UCSD. I add these because through teaching and working with the young composers at these institutions, I learned so much and my music developed exponentially.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003emine but for its sublimation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewas written while teaching at BoCo (and while Jack Yarbrough was there as a masters student in contemporary performance); While the piece would not have been possible without my PhD experience, I also absolutely could not have written it during my PhD. It was only after my PhD that I learned how to be flexible enough with my own project to create something like this piano solo. Effectively, it was while teaching that I learned not to confuse material for identity; suddenly anything had potential and relevance: that aforementioned chord \u0026amp; all its implications, not to mention the pivotal triadic moment midway through the piece. (This strange chord that I keep on referencing? It’s the chord at roughly 18 minutes into this recording, which the piece gets stuck on for the following several minutes. Listeners of this disc will have plenty of time to consider it as I’ve considered it…) \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eThe throughline throughout most if not all of my work from Oberlin until now is the idea of (or what would eventually articulate itself as the idea of) physicality. At Oberlin, this was mainly evident in the visceral energy and frenetic, thorny gestural language of both the music I wrote but also of the music I was excited about. Discovering the music of Helmut Lachenmann and Brian Ferneyhough and Richard Barrett was huge for me at the time, and it was through parroting their gestural and contrapuntal language that I first started to value the sense of physical energy being evident not only in performance but somehow in the sound itself. At Huddersfield, I researched physicality as intersecting with instrumental mechanism; how consideration of these things could become the basis for a sonic sensibility.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eEnergy\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebecame\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003etactility\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e. I considered sound to be matter, to have mass. Interventions in painting (Gerard Richter) and dance (William Forsythe) were particularly important, but so were my performer collaborators, as they brought me closer to their instruments. During my PhD, my music slowly began to chill out, and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003ephysicality\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eno longer necessarily meant\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003egesturality\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e. I searched for some sort of projection of physicality (which up to this point had mainly conditioned material) upon form: timescales of pieces expanded and a certain dark hermeticism replaced the former freneticism.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eTatility\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ebecame\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eviscosity\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e. Now I’m in some strange place of abundance where the idea of physicality is so elemental, so sunken into how I think about sound and time, that it’s there, palpable, but completely undemonstrative. My work now requires performers to access a far more centered, withdrawn, private communion with their own bodies, and with that of their instruments, and with those of their ensemble collaborators. It’s a heightened, acute, intense state of physicality and proprioception for the musician to produce and shape and maintain the sounds I’m asking them to generate (and also the forms I’m constructing), though this physicality is practically invisible to an audience member. Only through a certain charge in the sound does it communicate itself.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eViscosity\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehas become\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003evulnerability. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003eI'm very interested in what you said earlier, about how\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C16\"\u003emine but for its sublimation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C11\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ehas given you space to explore interval and harmony more than you had previously.  In a way that reflects the shifts in my own tastes over the past few years, and I wondered if you could say more about it?  Do you see it as part of a wider re-emphasis in contemporary music more generally?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eI do think there’s some sort of shift, or a confluence of several threads that are in the air, that’s happened with those who are interested in being receptive to it which has led more composers to explore interval and harmony in idiosyncratic but also more plainspoken ways than in the past (but of course: whose past?). When I was an undergraduate, so much discursive air was given to “tonality vs atonality,” as if it was an episode of Celebrity Death Match. What a waste of time, because these are both systems that may or may not have anything to teach you about\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eyour\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emusic. Eventually I realized that people don’t really know what these things are, and most of the time they just mean “triadic chords” and “minor seconds.” It’s far more interesting and productive to simply think of interval, and to think of a discourse amongst intervals that can emerge over time. Consonance is useful; dissonance is useful. Work with these things long enough and eventually it’s not so clear when one is one vs the other. And that’s form: creating a context for something to be perceived as\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003esomething\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eAlso, for me, tone is inextricable from timbre, which means that it is inextricable from noise. It was only when I started working with noise that I started getting really intentional with tone and interval, though I wouldn’t acknowledge this for many years into that journey. We hear this very clearly in my music from 2014-2018 or so: I am only ever orchestrating noise that has veiled, sunken, but luminous tone buried deep within it, and I am only ever presenting tone which is encrusted with noise. This also is due to my focus on physicality: it’s not just\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003ethis tone\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ethat I want, but\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003ethis tone\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eas produced in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003ethis particular way\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e, which leaks air or bow noise or something of its physical production into it. Hearing these concerns expressed in very different ways than my own by other composers has also been very inspiring. Whereas before I invoked Lachenmann and Ferneyhough and Barrett, here I might invoke Catherine Lamb and Élaine Radigue and Michelle Lou. It might also be conditioned by certain pop music that I’ve loved for much of my life: shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine, Grouper, Mount Eerie… All of these musicians bring tone and noise very close to each other, and sink very pure melodies within more hazy, viscous, abrasive textures. Listen to something for long enough and you risk thinking about it… \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"Wp-Normal-P\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003eBut ultimately, for me, I needed\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eform\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eto fully bring me to things like tone and interval and harmony. It relates to this journey I’ve been on from material to form, all guided by this continuing and expanding preoccupation with physicality. At one point in this journey, thinking about physicality meant that I was putting the wager heavily on material. Thinking about how our bodies connect to instruments to activate vibration and to sustain and modulate sound: this is material. Thinking about how instruments are constructed to generate vibration and connect to and respond to our bodies in certain specific ways: this is material. Building a sonic language that is all about how a sound is produced on acoustic instruments: it’s material. And while material is still extremely important for me, I now realize that I felt I needed my material to be a certain thing, to sound a certain way, to behave a certain way in order for my music to be My Music. This is what I meant when I said, above, that I was confusing material with identity. Now, material is in much greater reciprocity with considerations of form. Through form, anything is possible, because form really is experience. Form is what emerges from my own sensibility, my own listening, my own ways of processing information, my own means of relating to others. So, from that perspective, material is both inert and pluripotent, and I can use\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003eany\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003ematerial and give it valence and meaning through form, because form literally is a reflection of my identity and sensibility. Form, in a way, has become material, in that it’s what I’m most in communion with while composing.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003emine but for its sublimation\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewas the first piece of mine to be composed in this heightened state of reciprocity with form, and in so doing, the piece led me to these strange but luminous relational places including, but not limited to, harmony and interval. I was able to invite them into my practice because form led me there and justified them, without baggage and without history, but with necessity and contingency and inevitability. The piece is, to quote Eugenie Brinkema, ”a work, then, not about form, but of form.” Despite it containing so many types of materials that I never allowed in my music before,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C15\"\u003emine but for its sublimation\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Normal-C-C14\"\u003esaw me at my most honest, vulnerable, and true.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/jack_headshot_480x480.jpg?v=1751469624\" alt=\"\" style=\"float: none;\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003eJack Yarbrough\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Another Timbre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51429191844154,"sku":"at239","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0740\/3631\/4426\/files\/at239frontcover.jpg?v=1749650862"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.anothertimbre.com\/collections\/special-offer-3.oembed","provider":"Another Timbre","version":"1.0","type":"link"}