WHYBLTL - composed after 1960 ?

[Mambo]

Originally Posted by Scott Good

The acoustic nature of amplified instruments and acoustic instruments is quite difficult to manage. I've tried as a composer and concert producer. There is a sweet spot where the timbres can blend, and this often has much to do with the placement of the speakers. They really should be behind the ensemble, so the timbres blend and become diffuse - thus the ear cannot separate the sounds, as they do when the speakers are in front.

The other trick is to put just a little bit of the acoustic instruments sound into the speakers.

I'm often shocked at how little care is put into mixing electric and acoustic instruments. Speakers are placed without any thought as to how they will interact in the acoustic environment. It's as if once the building has been built, we don't have to care about acoustics anymore.

thanks, Scott
it sounds logical that the speakers should be behind the performers.
by amplified instruments i assume you mean something like guitar.
i am not sure of how Bondon's Concerto de Mars for guitar and
orchestra (1966) was recorded; the guitar solos are ok, and even
when it is playing with the orchestra, the guitar blends well and is
not lost among the other instruments.
The 'Mars' appears to have diff. meanings - as Bondon may have wanted - the planet; the god of war; and he finished it in
March (French: Mars) 1966.
Could not find it on youtube, but this website had samples of the work:

http://www.classical-composers.org/comp/bondon

[Balthazar]

Earle Brown's Available Forms for chamber orchestra, 1961.



Brown was a pioneer in open-form composition, and it's strange he doesn't loom larger in the history of the avant-garde.

[Quijote]

Originally Posted by Balthazar

Earle Brown's Available Forms for chamber orchestra, 1961.



Brown was a pioneer in open-form composition, and it's strange he doesn't loom larger in the history of the avant-garde.

Not a prolific composer (no problem, per se) and not as interesting as Stockhausen or Cage in terms of 'open form'. More a fringe player, I would say.
I've just realized Balthazar that you are probably a contributor to Wikipedia for some of the composers you mention.

[Scott Good]

Originally Posted by Quijote

Not a prolific composer (no problem, per se) and not as interesting as Stockhausen or Cage in terms of 'open form'. More a fringe player, I would say.

Perhaps...but he did compose one of my absolute favorite graphic scores to perform, with the delightful title of "December, 1952" - if I am not mistaken (and may be) is the first purely graphic score.

Mr. NewMusicXX provides lots of deets - solid performance on piano by unknown player. But I put it up mostly so you can see the score. nothing but lines, of varying length and width, arranged horizontally and vertically.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE3O4...eature=related

[Quijote]

Originally Posted by Scott Good

Perhaps...but he did compose one of my absolute favorite graphic scores to perform, with the delightful title of "December, 1952" - if I am not mistaken (and may be) is the first purely graphic score. (...)

Well, I no expert on Brown, but I did study two or three of his supposedly key works some time ago (sorry, can't remember and I don't have access to my notes at the momement) but I wasn't impressed. Not sure if his was the first truly graphic score, seem to remember it was Cage or perhaps Cowell?

[Balthazar]

Originally Posted by Scott Good

Perhaps...but he did compose one of my absolute favorite graphic scores to perform, with the delightful title of "December, 1952" - if I am not mistaken (and may be) is the first purely graphic score.

I think his work was impressively varied. He not only composed music for conventional combos, but also for sets of loudspeakers and pairs of harpsichords:

[Balthazar]

Have been discussing David Foster Wallace elsewhere; a biography of the late author is due out soon. If we're talking about nonconformists, he was definitely one. And this morning I heard an appropriate tribute to the writer and to the uncompromising artistic ambition he (& old man Sessions) represented.

[Aran]

A bit of a mixture:

Francis Routh: Oboe Quartet, Op 34
Francis Routh: Tragic Interlude for Oboe Solo, Op 43
Elizabeth Lutyens: Oboe Quartet, Op 81
Elizabeth Lutyens: Quincunx (just comes in at 1960)
David Bedofrd: Music for Albion Moonlight (1965)
Birtwistle: Various: Nenia, Fields of Sorrow, Verses for Ensembles

[Aran]

Peter Sculthorpe:
Port Essington
Mangrove
Sun Music 4

Bedford:
Music for Albion Moonlight (1965) again