Varese Octandre

[Octandres]

Two performances of Octandre by Varese in a week on BBC Radio 3. As my moniker suggests I think this should not go unremarked. It is a great piece, a microcosm of Varese. If you don't know it, give it a go in a concert also including Ligeti: Chamber Concerto, Carter: What are years, Boulez: Derive 2, brilliantly played by Ensemble Intercontemporain under Boulez. BBC iPlayer has it as coming today ... soon ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...rcontemporain/.

[Herzeleide]

For those of you who haven't heard this, you have only one day left! It's a spellbinding concert and Dérive 2 is one of the greatest pieces in the world of the past however many years. Plus Paul Griffiths confirmed that there are elements of jazz in it (which I had pointed out elsewhere on BC). There are also passages which sound like hallucinogenic rituals from another planet. Or Pachelbel's Canon or Sumer is Icumen In on acid. And then you have Ligeti, Varese and Carter's excellent new piece. We're spoilt!

[some guy]

Well, buckaroos, I was wanderin' around the ghost town we call Brightcecilia, just kickin' up dust and watchin' the tumblin' tumbleweeds, when lo and behold, there was another human there, right there in the middle of my sepulchral solitude!!

Anyway, thanks for the reminder Herzeleide. I'm listening to the concert even as I type. Good fun!!

[Octandres]

Thread resurrected to note this rather nice quote from Ferneyhough (http://www.kairos-music.com/R/Ferney...rneyhough.html)
... Varèse’s Octandre, which Ferneyhough cites as ensuring that “composing became my definitive goal in life”.

Also for anyone who does not know the Kairos catalogue http://www.kairos-music.com, always a good place to browse for something interesting - mainly central European modernist.