Time

Never enough of it. I have been working on my current piece, Piano/Cello/Clarinet, for 8 months now and I still don't have a draft score that I am happy with. Whenever I have clarity of vision of the piece as a conceptual whole I struggle to get musical ideas down on paper. As soon as I am able to get musical ideas down on paper I lose the clarity of vision. No matter what I do, whether this piece works or fails, I don't think I will ever understand it. It has been composed during a time of immense change on a musical and conceptual level for me. The inspiration for the piece is therefore drawn from all the new ideas and frames of mind that I have been through since June of 2008.

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February has been an expensive month for me. Spent a lot of money on CDs. Over the past week alone 11 new albums have come in. Plus 3 more on their way and at least 3 before hand. Its going to take a while to digest all of this music. I hope to write about it a little as I do make my way through them all though.

While 4 of these most recent batch of cds have been listened to all the way through so far, only one has been given my full attention on more than one occasion. It is playing currently. It is Le Bruit Du Toit. A cd of improvised music by saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and percussionst Seijiro Murayama. This album was recorded in the hon gaku temple in Mishima, Japan a little over 2 years ago.

The cover boasts a corner of the roof of the temple set against a pale blue sky and bare winter trees, and the music echoes the crisp, fresh nature of this image. Guionnet utilises various extended techniques, predominantly on long tones, to vary the textures and timbres of the pitches he emits one by one, interspersed by silence and creating reactions from or responding to Murayama's array of percussion instruments. It is Murayama who really makes the CD an exceptional piece of music, however, with his placement of sound in relation to Guionnet's saxophone, and his choice of harmonies and textures. The crisp attack of his instruments create ruptures in time and space, drawing the listener into an intensely personal rhythmic experience.

Another CD that I've enjoyed a lot this month has been John Zorn's Madness, Love and Mysticism. All composed around the same time, the three compositions on this album ("Le Mome", for violin and piano, "Untitled", for solo cello, and "Amour Fou", for piano, cello and violin) represent Zorn's strongest chamber music compositions to date. The solo cello piece, dedicated to the artist Joseph Cornell is an especially beautiful and touching piece of music, yet leaving none of Zorn's transgressive intensity out of the mix.

Talking of Zorn and transgression, John Brackett's new book, John Zorn: Transgression and Tradition, is a very interesting read and provides a lengthy analysis of a number of Zorn's piece, including "Untitled" for solo cello.