It may sound strange this work of noises, but if you want to get a true and direct introduction to the compositional world of Jürg Frey this is the work to listen to [repeatedly] at low to normal volume. Just letting the sounds be. There’s enough information on the composer and on this work to help you on the way. / sijme storm
During a three month stay in Berlin from October to December 1997, the Swiss composer Jürg Frey made field recordings in a park. He recorded distant environmental sounds by setting a microphone in the middle of the park, to collect various sounds—traffic noises, town noises, rumbles—any kinds of distant sounds which reached the center of the park via space. His microphones also picked up some closer sounds occurring in the park. Later he composed three electronic tape pieces in a series, l’âme est sans retenue I—III, in 1998—2000, using these field recordings as the source material. All three compositions have a similar minimal structure in which continuous linear stretches of sounds (of field recordings) and stretches of silence—all with changing lengths—alternatingly fade in and out. Introduction to the the three compositions by Yuko Zama
Today 3-12-2020 Jean-Luc Godard will be ninety-years young!
There is only one JLG, and we all have our own Godard. To me JLG is like Moving Poetry. The sharpening of the mind, the dancing thoughts. Beautiful moments, the act of creation, this designing of meditations.
go on, try it, FILM FOR THE EARS
The power of things to move us ‘MONO NO AWARE”, this process of ‘the moving’, that what ‘moves’ us, is what triggers me, haunts me, fascination, sensations? The moving image, the movings clouds, the edit/ montage, the substance, the contrast. It is easily found in such things like desire, passion, this raw emotion that sets the wheels in motion, but it is also found in the delicate, almost unnoticeable things that move us, like the wind in trees. I’m a researcher of movement, the ‘mono no aware’ the power of things to move us. And here i find support in the work of others, Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Jullien, William Burroughs, Toru Takemitsu, Jurg Frey. There’s great beauty in this study of the ‘mono no aware’ but also great danger, because you so easily get in a state of excitement , and you are no longer studying, and perhaps loose track and get lost for some time or……. AVALON!
today I’m posting 2 compositions: ‘met zachte beweging’ [‘gentle- movement’] dedicated to composer Jürg Frey, from whom i learned so much through his music, writings and lecturing in the last 5, 6 years, and ‘ I have come home’ which i dedicate to photographer, filmmaker Robert Frank, who showed me the acceptance of beauty no matter how beauty wishes to show herself, or to put it in another way, the process of learning to accept.
USE HEADPHONES FOR THE BEST DETAILED LISTENING EXPERIENCE! Listening to your iPhone or other small devices without headphones will decrease your listening experience. A lot of the music is soft, in terms of loudness. This is an essential part of the music.
In this fragment of a recent rehearsal you can get an impression of a circular movement working. Sijme Storm ensemble: André Hogeslag: Electric guitar, Freeze [E.G.O.] and E-bow Luuk de Weert: Bowed Vibraphone Ferry van der Werff: Electric guitar, Freeze [E.G.O.] and E-bow
This composition is part of ‘EDITIE 2018/2019’ / 11 Studies for the EHX Freeze
André Hogeslag: electric guitar, freeze [E.G.O.} and E-bow
This composition is part of a ‘Collection of Sketches for Solo Guitar and EHX Freeze’
Today, while working on a transcription for electric guitar of a Telemann ‘Fantasia’ [1735], i was thinking of another transcription i once made a long time ago of a piece by Orlando Gibbons [1583-1625],
The piece i’m referring to ‘Five Part In Nomine’ was scored for Wurlitzer Electric Piano, Vibraphone and Electric Guitar. A fine instrumentation!
This may be the right moment to post a transcription i made of a panel discussion that was video taped by Other Minds in 2010. Charles Armirkhanian is discussing the 2nd String Quartet with composer Jurg Frey. You can see it here: https://archive.org/details/OMF_2010_03_04_c2_01
My transcription: ” I can tell something of the background of the piece, which is a book which I have at home, it’s an old book of the late 18th Century, which is a choral book, a book with chorals and psalms, and many years before I wrote this string quartet I was busy with these books, I copied single voices and parts in my sketchbook and made scores of these chorals, because this book is not in the usual score, it’s written first the soprano, alto and then tenor and then the bass. If you want to know how the harmonisation is then you have to make a score. And I like it very much to copy without a special focus why I’m doing that, and I combined it, this material, with other material of my work and slowly slowly it started to become a process into the direction of the String Quartet. And this process I think was the interesting thing, how can you turn a choral book into my own music, and this was a slow process. It was also a very delicate balance between pushing it forward and let it happen, and you cannot force a piece process, but if you are doing nothing you will not have a piece in the end. So, it’s some kind of letting go for it, let it happen and to come to, yeah, slowly the piece comes into focus and after months, it was not a struggle, sometimes I stopped for weeks and then after months I thought maybe this could be a String Quartet and then it took me another 1 and a 1/2 years to elaborate all details of color, of durations and so on. So this book is on the background, and this book doesn’t have any variation it’s just this book and it’s 80 or 90 psalms..”
What strikes me so is this important role church music, psalms and hymns and chorales still play in music. This leads me to my own fascination with church music in general. From the Ecole de Notre Dame, to Orlando Gibbons, to Claude Goudimel, [the composer to which Jurg Frey might be referring to, when he speaks of his book of chorals], Goudimel the composer of the Genevan Psalter Book, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Goudimel], to Jurg Frey, to Morton Feldman [” if i want my music to demonstrate anything, it is that ‘nature and human nature are one. Unlike Stockhausen, i don’t feel called upon to forcefully ‘mediate’ between the two. Stockhausen believes in Hegel; i believe in God. it is as simple as that”]. [‘A life without Bach and Beethoven’ – Give my Regards to Eight Street].
I get the feeling this is a universal thing, at least in the context of western music, and it surely is of importance to me. I’m convinced that some knowledge of this subject will give you good insights of music in general.
So for now i’d like to end with the mentioning of Roscoe Holcomb, a Kentucky Mountain Music man with a strong faith.
texts, drawings, notations, technical stuff are all from my sketchbooks
12 june 2019
from my wish to play soft, abstract and harmonious sounds came the energy and motivation to start to think about chamber music and eventually to write music for chamber music ensemble. Electric Chamber Music, because at the center of this writing is the electric guitar. so far i’ve written some 25 pieces in the last year. Solo pieces, duets, trio’s, quartets, and lately i’m working towards combinations with woodwind instruments [clarinet, flute] and percussion. besides thinking and writing the music i wanted to test the written material. an Ensemble would be perfect for this musical journey. my great great grandfathers name was Sijme Storm, he was the gardener of ‘Kasteel Soelen’ / ‘Soelen Castle’ in the 19th Century. Enough reason for me to name the Ensemble after him.
my main inspiration for the project: – Ecole de Notre-Dame, – Morton Feldman, – Jürg Frey.
