Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, October 28, 1969 :..:::.:.:. records--- . The rainbow beyond electronic patina By R. A. PERRY ' Too many works by contem- porary composers who are in- volved with electronic synthe- sizers sound like mere labora- tory experiments which, instead of being scraped or refined, are pressed into vinyl as completed aesthetic statements. The re- sulting bounty of electronic mu- sic recordings creates a situa- tion wherein a listener must act as a child watching a procession of nude emperors. Very few highly-touted electronic or mixed-media pieces are really anchored in any emotional, poetic, or synaesthetic creative ground: very few allow much play for even the eager imag- ination. A work like Leon Kirchners String Quartet No. 3 for Strings and Electronic Tape (Columbia MS 7284 sounds very much like the product of a Professor of Music at Harvard trying his hand at the latest "thing." and although certain interesting ef- fects are created in the c o n- frontation between electronic tape and human string trio, the impression gained from repeat- ed listening (one must try after all is nothing more than an exercise in modernity. One of the few recordings of- fering more than a skin-deep patina of experimentation a n d going beyond the sterile tone- bursts of Stefan Wolpe and his followers (still doing what Berg mastered in his Chamber Con- certo) is an album which pre- sents two compositions by Terry Riley. I do not know much about Terry Riley other than his first Columbia recording, In C (MS 7178). won good notices, and that his second Columbia re- cording, A Rainbow in Curved Air, presents an extraordinarily beautiful, exciting, and involv- ing musical experience. The se- cond side of this album (MS 7315) is devoted to a piece call- ed Poppy Nogood and the Phan- tom Band, scored for soprano saxophone and electric organ; like the irreverent titles Satie appended to his most serious compositions, Riley's title should not be taken indicate p u r e whimsy. On the contrary, Riley takes you on a very concentrat- cd and very ecstatic adventure, Poppy Nogood begins with a slowly swelling electric organ drone which clearly resembles the opening crescendo in Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathus- tra. The swell peaks and then maintains itself in a throbbing drone of measured pulsation, not unlike the tambura under- lying Indian ragas The steady throb is finally broken by brief, rhythmic, electronic interjec- tions and somewhere beneath the all-encompassing pulses of sound one senses distant fan- fares. It is hard to be exact about what the wave of sound contains; its discrete particles communicate on a subliminal level. Like a ray of golden light the electric sax cuts in and begins a long riff which simultaneously recalls both Miles Davis in Sketches of Spain and Bismillah Khan on the Indian shenai. Melodically, the influence is Davis; ornamentally. one hears Bismillah Khan. Riley alters more freely flowing passages with notes of longer, repeated duration, using with each the the electronic possibilities of time-lapse echo effects, tape in- version, and other devices that connoisseurs of the synthesizer will more easily detect. Under- pinning the sax riff continues the deep, pulsing organ drone. At one point the drone assumes command again, but it now ap- pears warped, subtly fluctuating in pitch; it sounds like the low rumble one would hear in a sound-proof chamber - the sound of one's own life-hum. Needless to say, the musical effect cannot be translated well into words, partly because the effect is an .all-encompass- ing one that, when the drone is suddenly terminated, leaves your mind suspended in air. ebullient optimism of Haydn and Mozart and both revel in their moments of Sturm und Drang. If anything u n i q u ely Schubertian occurs in these symphonies, it must be the sheer love of melody, which, even in the second movement set of variations in the Second Sym- phony, becomes the motivating factor. The late Karl Ristenpart was one of those outstanding Euro- pean conductors t along w i t h Horenstein, Rosbaud, and Re- del, to name but a few little bi more rlaxed and one can hear the expressive independ- 1iene he always allowed his solo- ists. Yet many things in the Ristenpart versions are better. In the opening tuttis of the First Symphony, for instance, Beecham swamped the trum- pets: their calls ring true on the Nonesuch version. Risten- part never allows the "smudg- imW of inner voices that Beech- am lets pass, and in passages such as the Landler trio of the First Symphony or the an- dante variations of the Second fers for a want of recordings of Brahms symphonies, yet few truly outstanding performances exist. The obesity of Brahm's themes, the lack of interesting developmental passages, the heavy and square orchestration are usually only emphasized by conductors, making Brahms sound like the Spiro Agnew of composers. In many ways, I think that Toscanini alone trimmed the rhetorical fat from Brahms by highlighting mom- ent-to-moment tensions t h a t only Toscanini could discover. Pierre Monteux conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Brahm's Second Symphony, on a new World Series release (PHC 9123. chooses moribund tempos for the opening allegro n o troppo that only make the ted- ium more pronounced. Although Monteux creates a beautifully idyllic adagio, his version in general fails to break through the heaviness: except for the fine adagio, it is no better or no worse than most other re- cordings. The quality of sound, however, is deplorable; not only does a high degree of back- ground hiss exist, but also in- termittent buzzes intrude. A fine recital of lute music can be found on Nonesuch H- 71229, by the lutenist Walter Gerwig. Included are B a c h ' s Suite in G Minor BWV 995, Buxtehude's Suite in C minor Black Seniors considering 3200 SAB going to busines school. VISTA Week - Next Week, October 27 - 31. If you would like to find out more about VISTA's accomplishment and failures, its hopes and ams and if you igt be interested in b coming a voluee',-r, stop in at 3529 S.A.BA.;{ from 9-5 each day. A short filmwill be shown at 2 and 7 p.m. on iMonday- ORGANIZATION NOTICES aMort r Hoaird Alums and Actixes Meeting, October 28. 8:00 p.m.. Inglis House, Speaker: Mrs. Paul Liston, Sec- tion Director, Mortar Board: Relevant Anarchronismn. LOW PRICED PREVIEWS MON. and TUES., Nov. 3 and 4 MG PRMl f ~~iD I 1MOA N., N'a (SA? hM NVAR VVVIfW MURIM AUDRA LINDLEY I- JAMES WHITMORE CATHERINE BURNS Rti7R, ['1C,7Y .3" Jl (. (YVY.f 1611 '%1./ 1616 b EVAN HUNTER wvni Vto Riley's music becomes an en- vironment in a certain trans- portive way, and a shock occurs when that environment vanish- es. I suppose that the piece could be called head music, but the error here would be to pre- sume that it needs any external booster; the music itself be- queathes and calls forth its own imaginative potential. Compar- ed to the imaginative expansion Riley elicits, most acid-rock is pure Turkey in the Straw. Riley has combined jazz, orien- tal patterns, and electronic wiz- ardry into a work which is much more than the sum of its parts. Another excellent recording, on far more traditional ground, is a Nonesuch release w h i c h features the first two symphon- ies of Schubert under the direc- lion of Karl Ristenpart. H- 71230) Schubert's First Sym- phony was written as a fare- well present to the Wiener Stadtkonvikt, where the young Schubert had for five years trained under Salieri for p e r- formance as a choir boy in the Hofkapelle. The Second Sym- phony was written only a year later. Both works reflect t h e Terry Riley A Rainbow in Curved Air" known in this country. Although he devoted much of his energy to pre-Romantic composers, he I made some excellent recordings of Romantic works, such as a beautiful Brahms A-Major Ser- enade on the now defunct Cheek- mate label. This new Nonestuch recording is another tribute to Ristenpart's sense of quality. The conductor achieves with the Stuttgart Symphony 0 r - chestra a cohesiveness and yet a clarity of instrumental detail { that can hardly be faulted. The classic perfornmances of these two cheerful symphonies has always been Beecham's still available Columbia press- ing; Beecham's tempos are a now you can SEE anything you want starng ARLO GITHRIE n COLOR by Deluxe ::_ United Artists Shows at: 1,3, 5,7, 9 P.M. Desiwed br JO MIELZINER j , 'db MA.ELA CSE Symphony, Ristenpart effects a Toscanini-like tightness in the i :,h of solo voices. At the same tin, the cellos and basses have a weight and definition you can rally sink your teeth into, and ,e violin sound is solid and pre- Nolmuch used their D o 1 b y ois -reeduction system for the recording and produced im- maculatt surfaces and clean de- tails; the playing time runs over an hour without end- groox e distortion. I would con- sider this bud'et-priced album oe- of the otsttanding sym- pho.ic retcordings so far this year. The music lover hardly suf- WANT TO JOIN A CONSPIRACY ? YOU'RE IN. PREMIERE STARTS THURSDAY. JOIN US. TODAY AT 8 P.M. C - l .; s ' , t YOU CAN DO SOMETHING USEFUL! Tutor someone who wants to learn. Washtenaw Community College Students need tutoring in Eng- lish, French, Spanish, Social Sciences, Biology, Chem- - istry, Math, Accounting, etc. Call Tutorial Project-2547 SAB-763-3548 SUSAN ALLAN, Co-ordinator University of Michigan School of Music Presents 1969-1970 FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Wednesday, October 29-8:00 P.M. Hill Auditorium BASSETT-"Collect" for chorus and tape SCHAFER-"Gita" for chorus, bass choir, and tape University Chamber Choir Thomas Hilbish, Conductor STOCKHAUSEN-"Spiral" (first American performance) William Albright, organ I I What If Someone Monumentally Incompetent Became President?