USB DONE RIGHT: Two magic boxes that let computer audio ...
USB DONE RIGHT: Two magic boxes that let computer audio ...
USB DONE RIGHT: Two magic boxes that let computer audio ...
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mentor Gustav Mahler, and others,<br />
sometimes “correcting” what he viewed<br />
as defects in the originals’ style. These<br />
three composers are grouped into the<br />
neoclassical category because of the way<br />
they explored musical form, but they did<br />
not collaborate. Schoenberg actually<br />
disliked Stravinsky.<br />
Microtonalists like Charles Ives,<br />
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Terry Riley<br />
abandoned fixed key signatures and the<br />
eight-note octave. Others like Harry<br />
Partch dropped the equal-temperament<br />
tuning system. Starting in mid-century,<br />
composers experimented with pieces<br />
made of prerecorded sounds, rather than<br />
music performed from a score. Known<br />
as musique concrète, it is at the root of live<br />
electronic and electroacoustic music.<br />
Names in this school are Pierre Schaeffer,<br />
Edgard Varèse and the American<br />
John Cage. Cage introduced the idea of<br />
random events determining the content<br />
The recording is The Young Person’s<br />
Guide to the Orchestra with the Kansas<br />
City Symphony on Reference Recordings.<br />
Get it in the HRx version if your<br />
<strong>computer</strong> system will either output<br />
native high-resolution files, or downsample<br />
them acceptably. Apple’s iTunes<br />
will accept the file in high-res if your<br />
Import Settings preference is set to AIFF<br />
or Apple Lossless. The recording, which<br />
won a Grammy in 2011, is also available<br />
on hybrid SACD/HDCD.<br />
GET THE COMPLETE VERSION!<br />
of a performance. His most famous piece<br />
is 4’33”, in which musicians take their<br />
places but do not play their instruments<br />
for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.<br />
The “musical content” is whatever<br />
the audience happens to hear during <strong>that</strong> Contemporary classical music (but<br />
time.<br />
can we still call it <strong>that</strong>?) has not suc-<br />
To choose a single disc of Modern ceeded in furnishing a new, common<br />
music is to snub almost everyone. If artistic approach to music. Rising popu-<br />
you’re going to do <strong>that</strong>, better go all the lation and improved communications<br />
way. I’m going to recommend a piece have made it possible, even necessary,<br />
<strong>that</strong> was intended to teach a musical for multiple schools to flourish simul-<br />
tradition, by a Modern composer I taneously. This will pose a problem for<br />
haven’t mentioned at all. That would be a playlist after a collection has grown,<br />
Benjamin Britten.<br />
when different works from the same<br />
period may not seem to have much in<br />
common. We can, however, create a<br />
Contemporary playlist toward the end<br />
of the 20th You’ll have noticed <strong>that</strong> this free<br />
version of UHF Magazine<br />
is not quite comp<strong>let</strong>e. But you can<br />
get the comp<strong>let</strong>e version<br />
from Maggie for $4.<br />
Click here, and away we go!<br />
Century.<br />
We can populate it with Minimalists:<br />
Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley<br />
and John Adams, major composers in<br />
this group. Typically such music is<br />
composed of rhythmic and tonal phrases<br />
repeated with small variations which<br />
accumulate to give the impression of<br />
waves propagating through the music.<br />
It can be rewarding when you listen<br />
with focused attention, but it works for<br />
driving and housework as well!<br />
Another composers’ group would<br />
include John Tavener (not to be confused<br />
with the Renaissance English composer<br />
John Taverner), Arvo Pärt, and Henryk<br />
Gorecki, whose Third Symphony of Sorrowful<br />
Song, in memory of those lost in<br />
the Holocaust, had worldwide appeal.<br />
The work of all three has a strong<br />
spiritual dimension. Pärt’s characteristic<br />
style, which he calls tintinnabulist, is<br />
inspired by Medieval and Renaissance<br />
music. He turned to these while his<br />
native Estonia was under Soviet occupation.<br />
In several of their works, both<br />
he and Steve Reich have abandoned<br />
harmonic movement by composing long<br />
pieces in a single key. However the fact<br />
<strong>that</strong> their music is in a key at all makes<br />
it more accessible than <strong>that</strong> of some<br />
Moderns.<br />
In one way, listening to composers of<br />
the Contemporary period, and even the<br />
Modern, is like visiting an <strong>audio</strong> show<br />
and looking for innovative gear. You are<br />
bound to find at least one odd-looking<br />
speaker which you would probably not<br />
consider buying but which proves <strong>that</strong><br />
<strong>audio</strong> designers are continuing to push<br />
the creative envelope. If you associate<br />
contemporary music with the weird and<br />
the experimental, you will be confirmed<br />
in this by the work of Sir Harrison<br />
Birtwistle and George Crumb. The<br />
latter explores timbre with spoken flute<br />
(you can imagine the technique) and<br />
glass marbles pouring into a piano. More<br />
accessible may be the music of Thomas<br />
Adès.<br />
My suggestion for this playlist<br />
category would be kuniko plays reich, a<br />
performance on marimba by Japanese<br />
percussionist Kuniko, available in formats<br />
from MP3 to 24/192 FLAC, or as a<br />
physical CD, from Linn Records. Reich<br />
originally wrote Electric Counterpoint,<br />
for guitarist Pat Metheny in 1987, and<br />
Kuniko has arranged it for percussion<br />
with Reich’s approval. The performance<br />
is masterful and the sound is vivid.<br />
Having done this research to make<br />
my own iTunes playlists, I can vouch for<br />
the fact <strong>that</strong> it works well from several<br />
points of view. It makes it a little easier to<br />
find a given work and it makes it simple<br />
to set up a program of background listening<br />
in one style (although the Modern<br />
and Contemporary pieces tend to vary<br />
a little more than the others). More than<br />
these, it gives me a feel for Western<br />
musical development over time. I think<br />
I listen a little better for <strong>that</strong>.<br />
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 69<br />
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