With headphones I go into the field on this Saturday, in hopes of expanding my coverage of new music, as KW pings the outside world that the BBC Wales concert will progress this very afternoon..and wants to know how it goes. So, what the hell…I have nothing planned, and although I am reluctant, given my tastes for other things such as Shakespeare, and pretty young woman, I decided to take a risk in this abstract world again.

Just to be sure I was out of my normal Beethoven grumpiness, I succumbed to an hour knap, and prepped with a Chai tea. Then being 1/2 hour early, I decided to tune in and see what was playing, and unfortunately was subjected to a live performance of Glass’s Satyagraha by the NYMet. I won’t subject you to all my own negatives here on what I think of Glass. I’ll just lay the bottom line here that he is in my opinion one of the worse composers, the worse composers, the worse composers that has ever graced the planet. He is absolutely the pimple on the ass of musical history. Anyway, I was well prepped to begin listening to some old stuff…ANYTHING!

So, the concert…

You already know my opinion of Downie. Unfortunately, that has not changed and has only been reinforced by most of his pieces in the concert. However, I will say I did find something to listen to in Forms 7: Non-mediated forms for 24 instrumentalists. It wasn’t earth shattering for me but at least there were enough events and a certain novelty to keep me awake.

Moving on, Mefano was worth an interesting listen. His separation of intervals, events, and contrast kept my interest and attention. Xenakis did have some nice colours, and the events were surprizing at times. Brown had very nice textures, but as always, I have a problem with Brown’s “stop and go” pattern changes even though KW did a superb job conducting.

Jarrell’s Abschied, I had a problem getting into it. I guess my ears were tired at this point. His musical sonic objects were interesting for a while, but then I faded and went to playing chess online.

Kenneth held the pieces together quite nicely I will say that – especially the Brown…i would like to know how he chose and communicated the nnon-deterministic blocks. His flow of space / time – well placed there. You do get something novel and surprising at times from it. And I was most surprized in the Xenakis. Maybe it was the orchestral colours.

The interviews between sets were well spoken. But generally, as a diversion as it was this Saturday, I just didn’t have the ear for this music. I’m not sure I ever did, although sometimes I have distant memories of it from my mid teens when I loved so much of the avante garde. But, it starts to sound all the same to me know. The disjunct intervals seem like a cliche device. The rumbles and registrar displacements. All of it. Maybe its time to go back into the theatre? However, the point to all of this is KW pulled off a good gig…