In Benno's World

We had no phone reception where we were staying, as it turned out.  The day after we arrived, we drove until we found a place where the phone would work. We pulled into a parking lot, and I called Friko from there.  It transpired that we had parked right below her house.  "I'll be down in five minutes," she said.

Bang on a Can Exuberance

While I am working my way toward a blogging hiatus, I could not resist sharing this with you. Thanks to Thomas Deneuville at I Care If You Listen, all of us who didn't get to the 25th Bang on a Can Marathon can get a glimpse of it: exuberant, joyful, zany, miraculous, wacky, over-the-top, everything.  Who says classical music can't be fun?


Video + Editing: Thomas Deneuville

Opening animation: Daniel Thompson at DTWebart (http://www.dtwebart.com)

© 2012 I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

In Friko's World

Sometimes a picture must tell the tale, so here is one:  Friko's castle, from her garden.  Our visit with Friko, Beloved, and Benno was a golden time, and Shropshire is beautiful.

Taking A Break . . .

Great Blue Heron at Innisfree Garden

Starting tomorrow, I'll be offline for a couple weeks or so.  I've enabled comment moderation, but I'll make sure any comments Prufrock's might be lucky enough to receive are posted once I'm back online.

Guest Post: In C, The Gospel According to Dylan Mattingly

You simply have to relax and trust in that flow, let the music fill you and believe that it will take you places.  Because it will.

—Dylan Mattingly

—Post by Dylan Mattingly

The thing about In C that is so incredible to me is that it is completely radically different every time it's played.  In C is a byproduct of its performers and location to the extreme.  The performers have control over how many repetitions they give each cell (little chunk of repeated music), they have control over how loud, how soft, what octave, how slow/fast, and yes, how harshly/smoothly they play.

Variations on a Blue Guitar

They said, “You have a blue guitar,

You do not play things as they are.”

The man replied, “Things as they are

Are changed upon the blue guitar.”

In C

A music broke out

and walked in the swirling snow

with long steps.

Everything on the way towards the note C.

A trembling compass directed at C.

One hour higher than the torments.

It was easy!

Behind turned-up collars everyone was smiling.

—from Tomas Tranströmer’s C Major

A salutary thing it is, to throw out the rule book and start anew.  Terry Riley did it with the piece In C.  In going back to C, Terry Riley delivered classical music from the clutches of the unlistenable.  Had it not been for him, we might still be offered up, more often than not, music that isn't music, but math equations, unadorned.