Something Almost Being Said

Works by J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert

Simone Dinnerstein, piano

Sony Classical CD

Simone Dinnerstein sometimes serves as the Bach pianist antipode of the late Glenn Gould. Where Gould set the pace for Bach playing at an often prestissimo, sometimes frantic, clip, Dinnerstein often seems willing to exult in elegant turns of phrase and luxuriate in legato lines, requiring a more stately pace. This observation is not meant to suggest that Dinnerstein isn’t capable of her own moments of presto-infused abandon, as one can hear on Something Almost Being Said in the sprightly movements of Bach Partitas Nos. 1 and 2. But these are balanced by cantabile sections that accentuate breaths between phrases. As the Sony CD’s title suggests, Dinnerstein seeks to emulate the phrasing of vocalists and extol the melodic suavity of both J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert. This goal is never achieved through mannered playing or fussily implemented rubato. Rather, Dinnerstein successfully captures the elusive fluidity that tempo fluctuations require in order to seem organic.

Schubert is represented by the four Op. 90 Impromptus, pieces in which the composer provides seamless linear trajectories of his own. Dinnerstein makes the widely contrasting dynamics and the more bravura passages of these works stand out in stark contrast to their effusively shimmering legato passages. Notably, her traversal of the famously challenging chestnut, No. 3 in G-flat Major, is spellbinding. While instrumental music can, at best, provide us with unspoken communication that is “almost said,” metaphorically at least this recording “speaks” volumes. Recommended.

Composer and Conductor John Williams turns eighty today. To help him celebrate, the Boston Pops, an orchestra with whom he’s long been associated, has created a “choose your favorite theme” webpage.

It includes Soundcloud embeddable widgets for some of Williams’s most famous film music themes, such as:

My theme is the March from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” by Boston Pops


My theme is the Main Theme from “Star Wars” by Boston Pops


and let’s not forget:


My theme is the Theme from “Jaws” by Boston Pops

Soundcloud widgets can be shared via blogs, web pages, and most social media platforms, and the Boston Pops is glad to have fans of film music join in the celebration by streaming these excerpts.

On Monday, we mentioned that the Miner’s Hymns, for which Jóhann Jóhannsson composed the score, was screening Downtown in NYC. Jóhannsson has a live appearance scheduled tonight on the United States’ opposite coast.

Joined by the Formalist Quartet, Jóhannsson will give a retrospective concert at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on February 8th. The composer was also featured last night on KCRW’s program Morning Becomes Eclectic (Listen here).

Event Details
Wednesday, February 8th – Los Angeles, CA
@ The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery – 8PM, $25
Jóhann Jóhannsson performs music spanning his entire career with the Formalist Quartet

Photo: courtesy of John Cage Trust

This morning, Musical America published my review of the Juilliard School’s FOCUS! Festival (article here).

Dark UrrrU/Waterfinder - cassette split (via the sadly now defunct Peasant Magik): A generous helping of drones, post-psych reverberations, spoken word and caterwauling from Portland, Maine supergroup.

Caldera Lakes - “arranged” (via Ecstatic Peace): see Sunday’s review.

Long Distance Poison – The Shores of Titan: free download via their Soundcloud page (thanks to Steve Smith for the tip!)

Sharon Van Etten – Tramp (Out this week via Jagjaguwar). Her last album was indeed Epic; and this one has breakout hit all over it. Check out L Magazine’s article on Sharon: she’s interviewed by Wye Oak’s vocalist Jenn Wasner.

Sharon Van Etten

Tim Berne - Snakeoil (ECM Records): Also out this week, alto saxophonist Tim Berne’s most “chamber music”  flavored foray to date. Ches Smith, Oscar Norieaga, and Matt Mitchell join Berne on his first studio recording in years, creating supple, dynamic, and adventurous renditions of a set of new original compositions.

Johann Johannsson - The Miners’ Hymns (FatCat): From February 8-14 at Film Forum on West Houston Street in NYC, there will be screenings of Bill Morrison’s film The Miners’ Hymns: a portrait of the inexorable winds of change that beset a British mining town, forever changing its residents’ way of life. The score was released last year, but its evocative mixture of organ, brass ensemble, and string textures is well worth revisiting, even sans Morrison’s touching cinematography.

Caldera Lakes

Arranged

Ecstatic Peace e#110c cassette (edition of 100)

Rolling waves of white noise, feedback, and even mic noise wash over the clarion singing and drone-based ambience of Caldera Lakes (Eva Aguila and Brittany Gould) on their “arranged” cassette (out now on Ecstatic Peace). In the midst of this deliberately lo-fi and noise distressed ambience lies a primeval aesthetic that contrasts clangorous stabs, bleary utterances, and muscular cries with delicate arpeggios and strummed guitars.

While getting ahold of these limited run artifacts is great fun – a scavenger hunt for adventurous music listeners (I found mine on a recent visit to one of my favorite haunts Downtown in NYC: Other Music) – it’s a pity that this release hasn’t gained wider currency – as yet! The band, like so many others, is going to SXSW this year. One hopes that they bring a bunch of their tapes, CDRs, and other releases along (may they need runs >100!), and that the resultant buzz yields anything but lo-fi results for their careers.

Today I interviewed saxophonist Tim Berne in Brooklyn for a feature article that will appear in the next issue of Signal to Noise Magazine, the journal for improvised and experimental music. In a beleaguered market for print publications, particular for music magazines, I’m so pleased that StN editor and publisher Pete Gershon is working hard to keep the publication alive. The hope is that there will be two issues this year.

Snake Oil, Tim’s first CD on ECM as a leader (he’s supported David Torn and Michael Formanek on other ECM releases) is out this week (2/7/12). A quartet date, the personnel includes Berne playing alto saxophone, Oscar Noriega playing clarinet and bass clarinet, Matt Mitchell playing piano, and Ches Smith playing drums and a number of other percussion instruments.

An enthusiastic collaborator who has been in many more bands than a blog post can contain, Berne brings a “chamber jazz” aesthetic to this project, with gig-tested charts that have rigorous compositional structures but leave plenty of room for improvisation and on-the-spot inspiration. A gracious interviewee, Tim spoke about this project and several other current endeavors. Pete has given us a generous word count (how often do writers get that these days), and I’m really looking forward to covering Snakeoil and a host of other subjects in the article.

Below, you can see another incarnation of this group, the Los Totopos band, playing live via YouTube.  We’ve also included dates for the tour Berne is undertaking in support of Snakeoil on both sides of the Atlantic.

Tour dates

Feb 16 Boston, MA Regattabar

Feb 17 New York, NY Rubin Museum

Feb 18 Baltimore, MD An die Musik live!

Feb 19 Washington DC Bohemian caverns

Feb 24 Austin, TX

Feb 25 Los Angeles, CA Blue Whale

Feb 27 Santa Cruz, CA Kuumbwa

Feb 28 Oakland, CA Yoshi’s

Feb 29 Eugene, OR The Shedd

Mar 1 Seattle, WA Seattle Asian Art Museum

Mar 2 Portland, OR Alberta Rose Theater

Mar 14 &15 London,Vortex, United Kingdom

Mar 16 Munich, Unterfahrt, Germany

Mar 17 Forlì—Italy

Mar 20 Ljubljana Cankarjev Dom, Slovenia

Mar 22+23 Paris, Triton, France

Mar 24 Bergamo—Italy

Mar 25 Cologne, Stadtgarten,  Germany

Mar 26 Berlin A-Trane, Germany

Mar 27 Rotterdam Lantaren Venster, Netherlands

Mar 28 Amsterdam, Bimhuis, Netherlands

Mar 29 Dublin—Ireland

The Marble Vanity has a new 7″ single (on now on Slow Fizz via Drag City). You can sample a sunny psych-pop track via the embed below from their Bandcamp page below.

One of our favorite out indie songstresses, Julianna Barwick, guests on An Album By Korallreven, (out now on Acéphale), the debut LP of Swedish electronica duo Korallreven. Marcus Joons and Daniel Tjäder (of The Radio Dept) incorporate Barwick’s soaring layered vocals alongside droning guitars, synth brass stabs, and chanting refrains, all mixed over a bed of warm keyboard pads and acidic drum beats. Hear the single below as an embed via Soundcloud. The band is promoting the CD with their first US tour dates (below).





You can also hear Julianna’s new song “Never Change” via Soundcloud (courtesy of Asthmatic Kitty).

Korallreven Live in Concert

3/4 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
3/5 – Washington DC – Black Cat
3/6 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
3/7 – San Francisco, CA – Independent*
3/8 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex*

*Guest appearance by Victoria Bergsman

Cellist Maya Beiser and pianist Pablo Ziegler appear at Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday, February 1st at 7:30 (doors open at 6:30). They are performing Canyengue, the Soul of Tango, a program that features the works of Astor Piazzolla.

From 1978-’88, Ziegler was a member of Piazzolla’s band. His arrangements for cello and piano translate Piazzolla’s compositions, such as Libertango and Adíos Nonino, to a more intimate medium, but retain the genre’s vibrant spirit. The duo will also perform several pieces by Ziegler, and Beiser will take a solo turn, performing Osvaldo Golijov’s Mariel.

Below, hear a stream from File Under ?’s Tumblr page of the duo playing Fuga Y Misterio, a somewhat lesser known piece by Piazzolla, arranged by Ziegler.

“Fuga Y Misterio”

Le Poisson Rouge is located at 158 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and Sullivan), in the West Village, NYC.  Tickets are $15, available through the club’s website, www.lepoissonrouge.com, or call 212/505-FISH (3474).