Day 48

So I've been gone awhile. I know, I know, I'm lazy. The good news, I'm alive, not that any of your would be able to confirm that, as no one has come to my apartment to check on me after the abrupt end to my blog updates (and for this, I think less of you all). But I am here (well as much as anyone person can be "here" on teh interwebs), and I haven't stopped listening, I just became busy with, well let's say life and leave it at that.

As I said I have been listening, if not writing, and here is a selection that I have enjoyed while gone:

Mozart's Serenade in B-Flat, K. 361 "Gran Partita" (Crap)

Bartok's String Quartet No.1 (different)

Milhaud's String Quartet No7 (makes Bartok look normal)

Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie and Piano Sonata in A-Minor D. 845 (so outrageously good that just thinking about it makes me orgasm so hard that I won't be able to stand for 34 and three-quarter minutes)

So what does this means to you? Nothing. Unless you like good music (and by good music I mean well recorded music, the type is a matter of taste) and/or drugs, because really they are one in the same.

Let me explain. Yesterday I sat down for a listen, and this time I mean a true listen. I turned off all my lights (and as I live next to the north pole it's dark between 2:15pm and 11:30am), sat down on the floor beneath the beautiful print of Rothko's Red on Maroon and listened. And it was glorious. A virgin record, still sealed in its sleeve, devoid of surface scratches, thumb prints, the dust and the oils of life, ready to release it's full tonal assault of beautiful analog brilliance to my ears. I entered an opiate like haze.

More on that in a moment, first let me state what I listened to

Side One:

Piece: Mass in G Minor, BWV 235

1.Kyrie

2. Gloria

3. Gratias Agimus Tibi

4. Domine Fili Unigenite

5. Qui Tollis Peccata

6. Cum Sancto Spiritu

Composer: JS Bach

Performers: The Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra

Conductor: Richard Hickox

Recorded: June 1975

Side Two:

Piece: Mass in G Major, BWV 236

1. Kyrie

2. Gloria

3. Gratias Agimus Tibi

4. Domine Deus

5. Quoniam tu solus Sanctus

6. Cum Sancto Spiritu

Composer: JS Bach

Performers: The Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra

Conductor: Richard Hickox

Recorded: June 1975

So you get the idea now, I was listening to a two Bach masses, that ranged in pitch and tone from pipe organ to solo soprano, and it was amazing. You don't realize how good analog is until you listen only to digital (whether CD or god have mercy on me, lossy mp3) for a while. But once you actually sit down and listen to music they way you're supposed to (with your ears), music becomes a drug; a wonderful, wonderful drug that actually allows for you to listen to music. This is not the compressed crap they shove at people through iTunes, or the Amazon store or hell even your local independent record store (though in truth it looks like everyone is trying to become better). There is air around each note (not to mention there are notes instead of just tones), there is depth to the sound. I could go on and on, but let's put it this way, I'm a music junkie, and I only want the white china stuff.

Bach's masses were, well Bach's masses; they're amazing works of mathematical efficiency, counterpoint to point were the concept breaks down at perfection and still have remarkable beauty. Vocals interplay with organ, bass and cello set the stage for the incredible use of double-reed woodwinds (bassoon and oboe obbligato), the oboe strikes out, setting the melody, winding it's way through the sections of the mass, which always ends in the return to normality (or a G-Major chord). In the end I was a dripping man, laying on my back as my cats poked at me thinking I was dead, though rather I had found relaxation of the deepest variety. I had begun to listen to music again.

Day 40

Well I'm back...I know, I know, most of you out there thought I was dead. Actually most of you out there knew I was alive because you either live with me, spoke to me on the phone, or actually don't care if I'm alive or dead because you got to this blog by googling the Tool album 10,000 days. Truth of the matter is, it started out as me being really busy, followed by me being really lazy. But I'm back! And I'm listening to Bach!

Side One
Pieces: Cantata No. 103: "Ihr werdet weinen und heulen"
Cantata No. 200: "Bekennen will ich seinen Namen"
Cantata No. 118: "O Jesu Christ, mein's Lebens Licht"
Composer: J.S Bach
Performers: Heinrich Schuetz Choir of Heilbronn, Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Fritz Werner
Record Date: None Given

Side Two
Pieces: Cantata No. 7: "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam"
Composer: J.S Bach
Performers: Heinrich Schuetz Choir of Heilbronn, Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra
Conductor: Fritz Werner
Record Date: None Given

Ok, they don't write them how they used to, or at least they don't write church music how they used to. Seriously, go and sit in church, and listen to the new crap they turn out (mostly by David Haas). I understand that in order to make god (or God or G-d or whatever) more accessible everyone got on the "Let's all sing together and feel the mystery of the Lord through our community" bus. I have no problem with this, but save it for the retreats and the campfires (insert priest joke here). But by removing the complexities from church music, I always feel that we have lost something. Yes, we gained the ability to feel as "one" with the 45-year old balding father of three next to you belting out "Blest are They" three keys off the one that it is written in, but to me faith is something that while containing a communal aspect, is better suited by a metaphor using the vast complexities of sonic punctuation that is found in a Bach Cantata (or better yet Prelude and Fugue) or a Rachmaninoff choral mass. These are long, complex pieces, which require multiple listenings, thought and study in-order to help grasp their fullness; and yet, always, some of the beauty is undefinable, unexplainable, lacking the ability to define its wholeness through interpretation of the dots on paper that we in error call music. This is my metaphor, this is why I am disappointed every time I see that the majority of hymns sung during a service are composed by Haas (not to pick on him too much, he has written some nice tunes). Faith, for me, involves work, it involves thought, study and knowledge, and when all of that sweat and headaches are through, there will always something else, some other mystery, undefinable, unexplainable, lacking the ability to define its wholeness.

I rail against this modern conception of church music not because it's bad music (though a lot of it really is terrible [in my opinion]), but rather because it represents the "dumbing down" of the concept of faith (whether or not you have faith is on you, I know where I stand). Dumbing it down to the idea that just because you were born into a certain family/had water poured on your head/foreskin cut off/blessed prayers said and weekly make the trek to a building to sit next to people who you would never speak to outside said building that you can have a reliable, fulfilling relationship with God; to me cheapens the very concept of faith. But what do I know? I'm just a moron with a blog...

Day 35

It's a cold, gusty, stormy night; time for the organ music.

Side One:

Pieces: Preludes and Fugues in E-Minor BWV 533 and BWV 548

Composer: J.S Bach

Performer: Gustav Leonhardt

Record Date: None-Given

Side Two:

Piece: Preludes and Fugues BWV 547 in C-Major & BWV 544 in B-Minor

Composer: J.S Bach

Performer: Gustav Leonhardt

Record Date: None-Given

I still find it strange that I have been so conditioned to hear a fugue on an organ and automatically think of some horrible monster, when in reality it's the pop stars of today I often find scary.

Day 30

Going old school today.

Side One

Piece: Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV 1046

Composer: J.S Bach

Performers: Hamburg Chamber Orchestra with the Hamburg Bach Soloists, Adolf Scherbaum on Trumpet

Conductor: Harold Newman

Record Date: Non-given, pressing date 1977

Side Two

Pieces: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047; Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048

Composer: J.S Bach

Performers: Hamburg Chamber Orchestra with the Hamburg Bach Soloists, Adolf Scherbaum on Trumpet

Conductor: Harold Newman

Record Date: Non-given, pressing date 1977

It has been a while since I've listened to Bach and I always find it difficult. He really is boring, yet at the same time amazing. I found myself comparing his music to one of those fractal pictures made by computers; one half beautiful, one half mathematical, and no clear line where the one half begins and the other ends. In the end the Brandenburg Concertos (especially No. 3) will always hold a special place in my heart due to the ridiculous number of times I played them through my Jr high and high school years. Are they redundant? Yes. Are they predictable? Yes. Was Bach writing music that was already 20 years behind his own time? Yes. Was he writing music that will go down in history as some of the best ever put to bar staffs? Without a doubt.