Cantata 140 : “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” is really one of most amazing pieces ever written. When Ed Cohen declared this in the composition seminar, I assumed he was just waxing poetic about the Baroque era. But just listen to the first movement, when Bach drops out the continuo on “sie rufen uns mit hellem Munde” to let the chorus climb and soar, suspended, before regrounding them with “wo seid ihr klugen Jungfrauen? Wohl auf, der Bräut’gam kommt.” Fantastisch.
Tag Archives: music
in Soviet Russia, the iPod plays YOU
Someone should really do some rigorous distribution testing on the shuffle feature. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not really uniform over the songs in the machine.
1. Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
2. Minimum Wage (They Might Be Giants)
3. Das Lied vom Kelch (Eisler/Brecht, perf. by Gisela May)
4. Everything Hits At Once (Spoon)
5. Line Up (Lennie Tristano)
6. Mach Doch (Fischmob)
7. Acetate Prophets (Jurassic 5)
8. The Deforme (Beatniks)
9. Sham Gayi Raat Aai, from Shri 420 (Lata Mangeshkar)
10. Bagatellen for String Quartet (Anton Webern)
11. Living Life [w/Rec Center] (Prefuse 73)
12. Po Lazuras (some chain gang from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack)
13. No Compassion (Talking Heads)
14. Bag’s Groove (Thelonious Monk)
15. A Tisket A Tasket (Ella Fitzgerald)
16. Chramer Gip Die Varwe Mir, from Carmina Burana (Carl Orff)
17. Come Rain or Come Shine (Billie Holiday)
18. Everything Is Catching On Fire (They Might Be Giants)
19. Como Dos Extranos (Roberto Goyeneche)
20. Daughters of The Lonesome Isle (John Cage)
21. Fugue in A minor, BWV865 (J.S. Bach, perf. Glenn Gould)
22. Montparnasse (Francis Poulenc, perf. Stutzmann and Södergren)
letting my ipod choose the music
1. Crush With Eyeliner (REM)
2. Domino Theories Part I (Don Byron)
3. Critic Intro (They Might Be Giants)
4. Craisons in the Snole (Fischmob)
5. Lay, Lady, Lay (Bob Dylan)
6. Polka Dots and Moonbeams (Cassandra Wilson)
7. New Years Eve in A Haunted House (Raymond Scott)
8. Straight, No Chaser (Thelonious Monk)
9. Polly’s Lied, from The Seven Deadly Sins (Kurt Weill)
10. W.O.E. Is Me (Jurassic 5)
11. Rollend in schaumenden Wellen, from Die Schöpfung (Franz Josef Haydn)
12. Body And Soul (Frank Sinatra)
13. O Mistress Mine (Ralph Vaughan Williams)
14. Freundselig ist das Wort, from Cantata no. 2, op. 31 (Anton Webern)
15. Wax The Nip (Aphex Twin)
16. Nouvelles Adventures : Agitato Molto (György Ligeti)
17. Nicolas From Prison, from Saint Nicolas (Benjamin Britten)
18. Dreidel Song (Don Byron)
19. I’ll Wait and Pray [alt. take] (John Coltrane)
20. Big Time (Medeski, Martin & Wood)
tracks XI
Two mixes, one for leaving, and one for arriving. Not strongly themed via the text, but I think via the mood. At least for me. These are for a certain someone embarking on a neverending journey of school (i.e. an MD/PhD program):
Departure
1. The Last Empertor (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
2. Solitude (Billie Holiday)
3. Cavaleiro Monge (Tom Jobim)
4. Surabaya Johnny (Dagmar Krause)
5. If You Can’t Eat You Got To (Leonard Bernstein)
6. Silver Lining (Stiff Little Fingers)
7. Home (Zero 7)
8. Sparks (Röyksopp)
9. I Wish I Had An Evil Twin (Magnetic Fields)
10. Lied eines Freudenmädchens (Gisela May)
11. Nickel under the foot (P.J. Harvey)
12. Uleg-Khem (Huun-Huur-Tu/Kronos)
13. Such Great Heights (Postal Service)
14. Lonely Woman (Ornette Coleman)
15. Ghost (Neutral Milk Hotel)
16. Vayl Ikh Bin A Yidele (Brave Old World)
Arrival
1. Ever After (Sondheim)
2. The Girl from Ipanema (Pizzicato Five)
3. Hashmal (John Zorn/Masada)
4. I Feel So Smoochie (Kurt Elling)
5. Four, for Tango (Piazzolla/Kronos)
6. Salvatore Amato (Bell Orchestre)
7. Here Comes a Special Boy (Freezepop)
8. Dinner Music For a Pack of Hungry Cannibals (Raymond Scott)
9. Golliwog’s Cake-Walk (Debussy)
10. Happy Feet (Paolo Conte)
11. Sonata No. 10 for 2 cellos — Allegro Prestissimo (Barriere/Ma+McFerrin)
12. I’m Old Fashioned (Dinah Shore)
13. Mr. P.C. (Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross)
14. S’iz Kaydankes (Brave Old World)
15. Gimme Some Lovin’ (Blues Brothers)
16. Chapter 8 -Seashore and Horizon- (Cornelius)
17. Straighten Up And Fly Right (Nat King Cole)
18. Zigeuner (Noel Coward)
19. Someone To Watch Over You (Frank Sinatra)
20. Wright Brothers Rag (Wynton & Ellis Marsalis)
21. What A Little Moonlight Can Do (Billie Holiday)
22 verses?
I sang evensong at Grace Cathedral last night, followed by a rehearsal for this Sunday’s service and evensong. It went relatively smoothly, although I did have to put on my sightsinging hat for some of it.
One of the psalms for Sunday has 22 verses (Psalm 154). For those unfamiliar with Anglican psalm-singing, it involves four phrases, two for each verse of the psalm. The text is marked with cryptic symbols to indicate when the bar line is and when multiple syllables should go on a single note. Time is taken rather freely, with barlines indicating phrase structure more than strict time. So for example:
Measure 1: [D] The lord is near to those who
Measure 2: [Eb] call [C] up-
Measure 3: [B] -on him,
Luckily we alternate verses between half choruses. The trick with psalm singing seems to be to make it not boring even though you’re basically intoning a long poem in an extremely repetitive manner.
Afterwards I went to meet Ann — on the way I ran into Beland, which was very strange, since I hadn’t seen him in years, but he had to go grocery shopping and I had to go to the new Naia gelateria in the Castro. I tried the mojito and rose flavors. Thumbs up on the former, but the latter wasn’t rosey enough. It’s nice to see more gelato places appearing. I like it much better than normal ice cream. Wikipedia informs me that gelato has no air whipped into it. Another interesting tidbit : to be called “ice cream” in the US, a frozen treat must have at least 10% fat, and most gelato doesn’t make the cut. So it’s all the best for me that I like it better — it will kill me more slowly.
tracks X
This is for a special someone working for the Peace Corps in Senegal…
1. This Means You (Talib Kweli feat. Mos Def)
2. Non Je ne Regrette rien (Edith Piaf)
3. The Dark Of The Matinée (Franz Ferdinand)
4. Sinnerman (Nina Simone, remixed by Felix Da Housecat)
5. Forever Young (Bob Dylan)
6. Passing By (Zero 7)
7. SOS elephants (Les Sans Culottes)
8. Sparks (Röyksopp)
9. Walking Through The Darkness (Tekitha)
10. Dumbala Dumba (Taraf de Haidouks)
11. Oo-de-lally (from Disney’s Robin Hood)
12. H.C.Q. Strut (Django Reinhardt)
13. Uleg-Khem (Hun Huur Tu and Kronos Quartet)
14. Sumpin New (Coolio)
15. I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (Billie Holiday)
16. Busby Berkeley Dreams (The Magnetic Fields)
tracks IX
It’s Roman numerals from now on. I think this would be fun to drive to, but I like more mixed up things.
1. And The Angels Sing (Martha Tilton)
2. It’s Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
3. Wild Wild Life (Talking Heads)
4. There She Goes Again (Velvet Underground)
5. Saudade Dada (Arrigo Barnabé)
6. Peacherine Rag (Dick Hyman)
7. The Famous Polka (They Might Be Giants)
8. Seerauber-Jenny (Kurt Weill)
9. You Say You Don’t Love Me (The Buzzcocks)
10. Strange Eyes (Sunz Of Man, 12 O”Clock & Blue Raspberry)
11. The Fitted Shirt (Spoon)
12. Crush on Everyone (Jonah’s One Line Drawing)
13. God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday)
14. Misery Is A Butterfly (Blonde Redhead)
15. Smedley’s Melody (Squarepusher)
16. I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ (William Warfield/George Gershwin)
17. When You’re Smiling The Whole World Smiles With You (Frank Sinatra)
18. D’yer Mak’er (Led Zepplin)
19. Deceptacon (Le Tigre)
20. Ahead of the Curve (Jim’s Big Ego)
crepuscule with nellie
Over at Volokh, Orin Kerr has a tip on an album I will just have to buy — a long-lost recording of Monk and Coltrane live at Carnegie Hall. Just listening to Monk’s Mood (free stream on the BlueNote site) makes me want to buy the album. It’s a whole new way of listening to Monk’s music. The Monk-Coltrane album I already have is great, but this is more interesting to listen to.
more tracks
Four discs are in the works, and I noticed that I’m tempted to put the same songs on many mixes. Partly this reflects the fact that I love those songs, but it also stems from an unwillingness to subject these mixes to a rigorous programmatic form. One pair of CDs is for a move — since the move has happened already I’m roughly theming them as “departure” and “arrival” or “homesick” and “new home,” but many of the songs are similar artists or tracks I’ve used before.
Another factor is that most of the people for whom I make mixes have different musical tastes than myself, so I’m always looking to introduce my favorite artists that they probably haven’t heard much from. But there’s a limit to introductions — I’m unlikely to put Aphex Twin, Karlheinz Stockhausen, or Perotin in a mix unless I’m sure the person is going to like it. So the mixes tend to be rather conservative. I’m hoping to break out of this mold, maybe after the next few get finalized.
RIP Bob Moog
Robert Moog, a pioneer in synthesizer design and music technologies, passed away. There’s a nice obituary in the NY Times.
An Ergodic Walk 