Re: (idm) Pierre Henry-Messe Pour Le Temps Present
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<19971105190726921.AAA93@john.thenewage.com>
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quoted 1 line I do hope that it is released domestically, 'cos $28 is a lot to pay for> >I do hope that it is released domestically, 'cos $28 is a lot to pay for
a
quoted 5 lines single CD.> >single CD.
>
> Yeah, so do I. I've been waiting to snag this, and I've come
> close to dropping the $25+ for it a few times. Here's to
> hoping waiting (for once) was a good thing.
Well, I couldn't wait, and in a few days I should be receiving a copy from
BentCrayon (right, JohnC?). I'll post a review when the musique concrete
dust settles, but 'til then there's been articles on Henry in Vox and The
Wire recently which are pretty interesting. Apparently, he has no interest
in the electronic music of today, and his house is completely stacked with
archane instruments and reels upon reels of tape with the sounds he's
collected over the past 40-odd years. He even gave a concert in his house,
with people stationed in each room (but free to come and go)...
If anyone is interested in other works along the same lines, I just picked
up a disc by Edgar Varese on One Way Records (it's just called =Music of
Edgar Varese=), with several of his most popular works ("Ionisation,"
"Density 21.5," "Poeme electronique"). Most of the tracks were composed in
the 1930s for large percussion orchestras (they sound a bit like the
militia and war atmospheres of Weather Report's =I Sing the Body
Electric=), though the recording of "Poeme electronique" was recorded by
Varese himself in 1958. It has oscillators and some other early
electric/machine instruments, along with chanted manipulated human vocals.
Varese's story is quite interesting, too; he had dreamed of a wider range
of instruments for which to compose as early as the '20s and '30s, and sank
into a deep depression during the '40s because his applications for
instrument-research grants from Edison and the Guggenheim were completely
rejected. A very happy ending, though: in the early '50s, he was given an
Ampex tape recorder, and began composing again, until his death in the
mid-'60s...
----------------------- JohnBush.