Archive for the ‘classical music’ tag
The Faust Cycle: Day Eight
Artist: Ergo Phizmiz
Title: The Faust Cycle (or The House of Dr. Faustus)
Today’s section is “The Abduction of the Object”. By this point, I have lost most of the narrative thread of the story, only to say that I do know what the object is, and was surprised by this turn of events, as it represents possibly the only aspect of an actual plot line that isn’t part of the setup, or a set of narrative twists and turns.
Ergo is chasing a Linnet in a part of the house he doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t remember what he did with the parcel, and now imagines that if he happens on Dr. Faustus, he doens’t relish telling him that he’s lost the package. As he chases the Linnet he finds himself in an auditorium with a cross dressing person on stage, reciting odd sing-song-ish poetry than rolls on and on endlessly and barely making any real sense. The audience is a bunch of (again) people dressed in bird suits.
It’s after the cross-dresser that Faustus appears on the stage, wheeling out what appears to be a life size doll: Eloise. With the emergence of Faustus on the stage, we are presented with a series of processes for the construction of an automaton. I won’t explain here, however this section links together several of the more unusual recurring elements of the piece to give us an idea of how Faustus has accomplished a miracle: Eloise is an automaton.
While we and Ergo have been introduced to Eloise before, now she is quite appealing to Ergo. She has become a thing of beauty, something desirable. So desirable that he storms the stage, knocks out Faustus (with a trombone he steals from the orchestra) and grabs Eloise and runs away with her. And thus ends chunk 4 of The Faust Cycle, with possibly one of the most standard plot points of a narrative. However, it doesn’t seem like a cop-out. It works, we have seen Eloise before, and by now (nearly 12 hours into the piece) couldn’t have imagined that this was going to happen.
Much of the music and sound collages in this section were put together by James Nye & Ergo Phizmiz. And in this case, the majority of it has been used to illustrate the construction of Eloise and automata’s. This is possibly one of more distinct and specific examples of an interweaving of the narrative elements with sound collage techniques. Part of the sound collage reveals another source of the elements of The Faust Cycle: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Onwards..
The Faust Cycle: Day Seven
Artist: Ergo Phizmiz
Title: The Faust Cycle (or The House of Dr. Faustus)
The subtitle for this section is “The Bird Machines”. I listened to part of this section over the weekend, and the whole thing again today.
This section starts with Ergo waking up in a hallway, observing Marcel Duchamp teaching a group of small birds. A gramophone approaches, music playing, baboon like legs clanking against the floor. Ergo watches from a corner, not wanting to interrupt the happenings. He watches as the gramophone changes records via it’s fused in record changer. The new record is “Dr. Faustus Book of Birds”.
The selection that is presented next is a musical interpretation / narrative of this selection of birds. When the record ends, a book is extended from the bell of the gramophone. Upon opening the book, Ergo finds himself in another hallway full of doors, with a film projected at the far end. He looks through the peep holes in the doors, which is accompanied by a rather lengthy sound collage. There is a narrative about ducks, followed by another sound collage, before going into a song. When the song concludes we are taken into another lengthy sound collage: first of birds, then bells, chimes and carnival music which concludes this section of the piece.
My attention to detail may not be quite as great in this section, as I said I listened to it twice, but was so lost in the collages and the musical interludes that I didn’t pay as much attention to the narrative relationships. The one thing that I did notice was the restoration of Ergo to the main house now, instead of being in the sewers or the ballroom.
The other thing that impresses me in this section is the emergence of the birds. I’ve been thinking that many of the creatures and animals have some form of symbolic meaning. Obviously, this is all the stuff that dreams are made of, but frequently dreams are a manifestation of our real lives. No matter what, these narratives are thickly layered with all sorts of things that can be interpreted. But the task of trying to assemble and interpret all of this would be a daunting task.
Onwards…
Sunday Re-spin #4
Alright, this week has been hard fought, but quite successful, I would say…
- Six articles on The Faust Cycle have been posted, and there will be six more of them.
- I posted my commentaries on: the Cowon iAudio 7 & 9 players, A Brief Word About Security, and the iPad & iBooks.
- I continued serveral series: Finding Music Online, Shoestring Classical Series.
- I posted part two of my January Classical Listening article.
- I reviewed a new release by Pharmacore on the Pavillion36 label.
- And I started re-working the Links & Locations portion of the site.
The Faust Cycle: Day Six
Artist: Ergo Phizmiz
Title: The Faust Cycle (or The House of Dr. Faustus)
So today’s listening was a turning point on The Faust Cycle for me. Actually, it wasn’t a single turning point, but rather multiple turning points.
First was the introduction of The Faust Cycle Podcast. My first impression about this was: what a wonderful thing to do. Sharing this work with a group of kids, getting them the experience of making free-form music, and experimentation. Getting them excited about the process of recording this type of work. It’s a completely wonderful way to expand these kids horizons, but also extend the community of the Creative Commons and Libre Culture to another generation.
The inclusion of their podcast in The Faust Cycle itself adds another, very interesting, dimension to the piece. Those who are familiar with the writings of Jorge Louis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and James Joyce, to name a very few (it can be argued that I am referring back to Laurence Sterne again as well), have undoubtedly heard of the term meta-fiction.
Meta-fiction is typically fiction about fiction, or at least is self-aware in one way or another. The introduction of the podcast in this context adds another type of meta-fictional element: this is now an audio piece that is aware of itself, aware of the elements that have gone into it’s production.
Of Kinetoscopes & Dung
Now, back at the main piece we arrive to the next twist of the narrative: Ergo finds that he has become human again and is no longer a puppet. He realizes that he has no idea what amount of time has transpired: hours, days weeks? And he realizes that he’s about to burst, and sets off to find a lavatory to relieve himself. And, after finding an appropriate room, with one enormous push he is emptied.
While this activity is normal and necessary, he has a realization that he feels more empty than normal, that something is wrong. While playing a harmonica, trying to figure out what is wrong, he hears wailing from the pipes beneath where his soul has gone with his bowel movement. After noting the irony, Ergo realizes that he must get his soul back and thus flushes himself down the pipes.
What transpires in the sewage system below can only be described as hellish in ways we haven’t encountered thus far. Ergo watches several kinetoscopes of films about Lucifer, but is unable to decide what they mean. However, after the 2nd film, he hears a piano off in the distance, and decides to follow the sound to find his soul.
The piano we hear, is the same James Nye piece that has been used throughout: An Evening In Hell. Ergo finds himself in a ballroom, where many people are dancing and humming. As he stands in the corner, where only the piano has noticed his presence, he suddenly hears a voice in his ear reciting nonsensical poetry. He looks around to find the source of the voice, only to find a pig, which when patted squeals and expands to the size of the room then falls to pieces.
Lonely Violin music, and an interpretation of “Le Tango Perpetuel” and “An Evening in Hell” close this section of the piece.
Onwards…
The Faust Cycle: Day Three
Artist: Ergo Phizmiz
Title: The Faust Cycle (or The House of Dr. Faustus)
This section of The Faust Cycle has been sub-titled Culinary Philosophy. The narrator, Ergo Phizmiz himself (which I have failed to mention previously), finds that while he was asleep he has been relocated in the house. Of course, it has been difficult to realize that this has happened several times, because although he has a sense of being moved in his sleep, he still wakes up in the same room — or at least a room he thinks is the same room.
When Ergo awakens this time, he has an encounter with Mr. Suasage, after having eaten one of his suasages by mistake. Ergo promises to replace Mr. Suasages suasage, only to be informed that he is now 200 miles inside the house of Dr. Faustus. From here, Ergo makes his way to the train station riding on a chair. He attends a dinner with clocks, pigs, Mr. Suasage, and others. And he misses the train.
The narrative of this section seems to have taken a turn. It now seems to have been inspired, or is paying homage to Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. And, in the same manner this section uses humor and unique visuals to put us into a new world where the impossible becomes possible.
Musically, this section is highly filled out with works by James Nye, and samples from varying classical pieces — including a very hamronically complex symphonic piece that I cannot place for the life of me (although I am certain I have heard it before…it certainly sounds Russian, so I might believe it to be Prokofiev…but I won’t swear to it).
Overall, this section reminded me of listening to a Tom Waits style piece that instead of mixing the musical and narrative elements ala Alice, leaves the pieces seperate to stand on their own, allowing the listener the space to reflect on each element individually and in relation to each other.
Onwards…
January Classical Listening: Part Two
In the first of these two articles, I talked about the Grieg, Corelli and Haydn Brilliant Classics collections. In this article, I will present some notes on the Handel, Mozart, and Thomas Tallis collections. I also neglected to mention in part one that I had also acquired a box set of Telemann pieces, which I will try to include in this discussion.
The Faust Cycle: Day One
Artist: Ergo Phizmiz
Title: The Faust Cycle (or The House of Dr. Faustus)
Ergo Phizmiz & Firends have an accomplishment that is possibly the most insane thing I have seen yet: they have produced a 14+ hour piece and released it on the netlabel Headphonica. So the question becomes, how do you listen to such a piece? Well, for me, the best way I can think of approaching the piece is to break it up into 14 sections that are about an hour each, and try to listen to it over 14 days… So, as I do this, I plan to try to write something each day on the experience.
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Shoestring Classical Collection: Something Lighter
Introduction
Building a classical music collection can be both daunting and mystifying. Big symphonies and operas can sometimes seem quite foreign and difficult to approach and understand, and are quite lengthy and difficult to keep track of. So, how should you start listening to classical music if you find these pieces to be too much? Well, that’s the myth that we are here to bust, and look at some alternatives.
Finding Music Online: Part Two
This time I’m focusing on Netlabels. What are Netlabels? Well, like the Kahvi Collective mentioned in the first article they are community organizations that have decided to release collections of music either by individual artists, or in compilations in a way that is analogous to what the large record companies do. Many Netlabels release these recordings for free (as in without $$$ charges), and under a Creative Commons license, or a license that is very open.
The other aspect of Netlabels is in their history. Many of the Netlabels have been around for quite a few years. They derived from the Demo Scene: a group of hackers (hackers in the good and correct sense of the word) who work with computers at the lowest possible level to produce demonstrations of what the machines can do. In some cases you would be quite astounded by what could be done with an Apple ][ or Commodore 64. A lot of the music that these intrepid hackers wrote for the demos were initially released as “tracker” files, which predated MP3’s. Eventually, with the rise of the Internet and MP3’s these intrepid multimedia artists started releasing music on their own for the world to listen.
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January Classical Listening: Part One
My listening has shifted back towards the world of classical music over the last week. Whereas before I downloaded a bunch of samplers from Amazon, I am now listening to box sets, or portions of box sets I have recently acquired. This includes music by Wofgang Amadeus Mozart, George Frideric Handel, Josef Haydn, Edvard Grieg, Arcangelo Corelli, and Thomas Tallis.
In this first of two articles I will talk about the Grieg, Corelli and Haydn Brilliant Classics collections.
