Wolfgang Rihm Violin Works -- Serious music for serious listeners

Rihm: Complete Works for Violin & Piano 
Tianwa Yang, violin; Nicholas Rimmer, piano 
Naxos 

This is music not for the faint of heart. Wolfgang Rihm is an expressionist composer, who cites Mahler, Schoenberg, and Boulez among his influences. Rihm's an extremely prolific composer, and while his music may reflect his influences, it's certainly not derivative. Rihm has a distinctive voice and his music unfolds according to his own logic.

Unber die LInei VII for solo violin is a massive work that presents Rihm at his bare essence. Double-stops and arpeggios are rare in this work -- most of the music is a single-line melody. But what a melody! It skips around in a pointillist fashion, then becomes tenderly lyrical, then hops up to the extreme register for some softly played harmonics. All the while, though, the music has a sense of direction. And that sense helps the listener follow the player through this world Rihm sets them out to explore.

Eine Violinsonate and Hekton come from the early 1970's, and share a similar style. The music is disjunct, with sudden, wide leaps in register. By contrast, Antlitz and Phantom und Eskapade, composed twenty years later, show significant growth in Rihm's style. The leaps are still there, but its now but one aspect of Rihm's musical language, rather than the defining feature of it.

Tianwa Yang and Nicholas Rimmer have firm command of this material -- which is no mean feat. If you're up for some active listening of thought-provoking music, then this may be the disc for you. Rihm's music is adventurous and challenging, but never dull. And you'll hear some darned fine playing, too.

Bach's Evenings at Zimmerman's Coffeehouse

Bach Sonatas for Flute & Obbligato Harpsichord
Evenings at Zimmermann's Coffeehouse
Robert Stallman, flute, Edwin Swanborn, harpsichord
Bogner's Cafe

The subtitle of this release aptly describes the disc. In 1730's J.S. Bach spend a significant amount of time at Zimmermann's Coffeehouse in Leipzig. It was one of the regular performing venues for the Collegium Musicum, which he directed (and wrote music for). Most of his instrumental music of this period were written for this group, including the four flute sonatas in this release. By no means are these major works. Of course, it is Bach, so the sonatas are well-crafted, but the music is intentionally light and simple. This is more the Bach of "Air on G String" than the Bach of the Cello Sonatas.

Robert Stallman performs on a modern flute, but that just gives the works additional charm. The music mostly stays in the lower part of the flute's register, and Stallman produces a very warm sound on his instrument. The result is some attractive playing and a pleasant listening experience overall. Edwin Swanborn provides tasteful accompaniment on the harpsichord. The keyboard obbligato helps move the music along without sounding overly busy or fussy. An attractive program of music played with just the right tone to keep the proceedings light and entertaining -- as perhaps they were in Zimmermann's over three centuries before.

Angele Dubeau -- Game for New Music

Game Music
Angele Dubeau & La Pieta
Analekta

Are video games art? The Museum of Modern Art seems to think so -- they're assembling a collection of games to display in the hallowed halls of MoMa. What about video game music? The jury may still be out on that one, but Game Music certainly helps make the case for it.

Canadian violinist Angele Dubeau and the chamber orchestra she founded, La Pieta, present a program of current and classic video game themes arranged for the ensemble. It's an enjoyable collection of light classical music that should appeal to both gamers and those that don't know Ms. Pac Man from Master Chief.

Some of the scores have a cinematic feel. Splinter Cell, for example effectively conjures up the atmosphere of a techno-thriller action movie. Music from Heavy Rain and Chrono Trigger are two other selections that sound like movie soundtracks, befitting the serious nature of these games.

The theme to Assassin's Creed has been transformed into an elegiac miniature, with evocative Middle-Eastern touches. Final Fantasy is the most ambitious work on the album, an eleven-minute orchestral piece that would be at home in any concert program.

Not all video games are serious, though, and neither is their music. La Pieta's version of Angry Birds is just as fun as the original. And who knew that the theme from Tetris would lend itself so well to contrapuntal treatment? 

An enjoyable program from start to finish. Game on!

NaNoWriMo - Over, but not done with

On the final day of the National November Writing Month challenge I posted my novel on the site to verify the word count. It clocked in at 50,808 words, so I met the challenge -- again. Whew!

As always, it was a challenge, but this will be the fifth novel I've written through NaNoWriMo. And every year it seems to get easier with practice. (We won't talk about quality of writing just yet.)

Although the challenge is over, the work on the novel isn't. As I've done in past years, I'll post a PDF of the rough draft as soon as I clean up the misspellings (A Directory of Literature Sort Of) and other gross errors. But at some point I'll need to start seriously editing this story. I think there might be a good 25K-30K novella buried in there somewhere. We'll see.

Once I finish creating the PDF I'll put the book aside for a few months and look at it afresh sometime next year.

Sally Forth to MST3K

Francesco Marciuliano and Craig Macintosh occasionally move their comic Sally Forth beyond the fourth wall (Meta Forth and Meta Forth 2). Like this Sunday's sequence. (click on image to enlarge)

Ted really establishes his nerd credentials with the reference to Mystery Science Theater 3000. But to have the main characters Crow, Tom Servo and Joel (or is it Mike?) appear in the last panel? Genius.

Of course I'm a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and the shows current incarnations Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax), so I thought this was a great sequence.

If you're not sure what it's all about, here's a sample.