Anthony Braxton has released a nine-CD anthology of his piano music on Leo Records. Performed by Geneviève Foccroulle, the boxed set includes all of the prolific composer’s piano music written from 1968-2000. The set includes detailed liner notes by Stuart Broomer, featuring an interview with Braxton, and a separate booklet with the libretto and performing directions for his Composition 171, a lengthy work for pianist, actors, prompters, and “constructed environment.” Ranging from Braxton’s Composition 1, a modernist offering in the post-Webernian vein, to Composition171’s complex narrative and theatricality, this is an excellent overview of Braxton’s evolving aesthetic and questing character, presented

Eliot was wrong; May is the cruelest month, at least here in the Center of Universe this particular year.  Lingering winter infirmities, a miserable San Francisco spring and, of course, the mixed blessing of having passed that peculiar threshold where one becomes officially old.  I am now a card carrying member of the Medicare set; I am invisible to young women; the next fishing license I buy will not expire until I do.  When I was younger–which seems about 20 minutes ago–I subscribed to that great philosopher Neil Young’s credo:  “It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.”  Now,

 I was at the Matrix Music Collaborators’ season finale concert on May 5th, and while the whole concert was good the highlight was the last piece on the program: “Girltalk” by young South African composer Braam du Toit. It’s a lush, gorgeous, and sometimes surprising postminimalist meditation/groove which manages to be still and restrained while simultaneously pregnant with occasionally relieved dramatic tension. It was one of the best new pieces I’ve heard in months. The piece was composed for two pianos, two string quartets, and bass—the pianists were South African duo pianists Cara Hesse and Laura Pauna (friends of du

Ralph van Raat’s wonderul Naxos recording of The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Naxos 8559360) has been getting some great press lately but (you know how cranky you folks are) some people have complained that the CD didn’t contain the timings for the variations.   Take heart, gentle listener, all is revealed here.

My dear late best friend Danny Cariaga, classical music critic extraordinaire of the Los Angeles Times, once observed that people went to Wagner’s operas when they were new because they had more time. But now, with the onslaught of e-mails, IMs, cells with text messaging, to say nothing of headsets, call waiting, call forwarding, numeric pagers and the like, time seems fractured beyond repair. Are we really that far gone? And if so how can we get back to the unalterable truths of life, like love and death? These questions came to mind when I caught The Met’s penultimate performance

Curious item by Daniel J. Wakin buried deep in the bowels of Saturday’s New York Times, the jist of which appears to be the fact that absolutely nobody is upset because Bang on a Can has programmed  Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Stimmung” as the culminating piece of a 12-hour marathon ending early on the morning of June 1 at the World Financial Center Winter Garden.  Why might they be?  Well, apparently Stockhausen made one of his nutty comments about 9/11 being “the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos.” Call me crazy, but having studied and been in this journalism

Speaking of Rzewski (and aren’t we always), he’ll be at Zankel Hall on Thursday night when the Opus 21 Ensemble presents an all-Fred birthday bash, highlighted by the world premiere of Natural Things, a major new work written specifically for Opus 21, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, and Opus 21 (with support from the Chamber Music America Commissioning Program). Also on the program are Spots (1986), War Songs (2007-08) – NY Premiere, Attica (1972) and a two-piano performance of Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1980) with Stephen Drury manning the other piano. Festivities begin at 7:30; the

I saw him play three times–twice with Herman and once at some dreary little club downtown whose name I’ve forgotten in front of an audience of me, a friend and the bartender.  It didn’t seem to bother him much; he played like he was in front of a full house at Carnegie Hall.  Giuffre played sweet tenor, great clarinet, and, of course, he wrote one of the all-time big-band masterpieces–Four Brothers.  Doug Ramsey has a splendid writeup and a link to the unusual video below which proves conclusively, one mo’ time,  that Giuffre will live on forever everywhere musicians get together for the purpose of swing.    [youtube]YsXyKV8ElkM[/youtube]