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Subject: Re: Subotnick

From: JWBarlow@...
Date: 1999-11-01

In a message dated 10/31/99 10:53:39 AM, improv@... writes:

>I'm a huge fan of Subotnick's early works! He has a couple of CD reissues
>on Wergo, one compiles "Silver Apples" and "Wild Bull", his two absolutely
>essential pieces from the 60's, originally recorded for Nonesuch, the 2nd
>has "Touch", which features some really cool use of rhythmic sequencers
>and
>modulars, along with "Jacob's Ladder", a later piece for Soprano and
>interactive MIDI electronics, which I find considerably less interesting
>than his analog pieces. I'm constantly amazed at how contemporary his
>pieces from the 60's sound today, he was really exploring some interesting
>places.


Yes, I generally like his strictly EM pieces (maybe his analog pieces if I
were to think about it) more than the mixed medium pieces of instruments and
EM. I don't know the piece Jacob's Ladder though, but I remember liking Touch
a lot!

>As for Carlos, while I think there is an element of exotic easy-listening
>to her work, I still really admire her attention to arrangement and
>performance, especially given how primitive her tools were while recording
>SOB. I think it's a really musical interpretation of Bach, and I think
>something like this was necessary for the time to get people to accept
>the
>synth as a musical instrument.


Yeah, I wasn't commenting on the work so much as the way it was marketed at
the time and the place the work occupies historically -- I remember when I
first really heard about synths (in about 70 or so) it was Switched On Bach
and ELP. When I took electronic music courses in about 80, it was interesting
to realize what a long and established history EM had. There is a reason that
SOB is a recording that almost every one near my age knows that recording,
and nobody knows Subotnick, Cage, Xenakis, or Stockhausen -- it is certainly
a great introduction to EM.

As I recall, Silver Apples of the Moon was the first EM piece to be
commissioned for an LP. I guess one of the things I'm getting at is that SOB
is a great demonstration of the instrument and the new palette of sounds
(similar to the Wanda Landowski harpsichord recordings of the Two Part
Inventions going in the other direction historically). Subotnick's pieces are
composed specifically for the Buchla (or at least composed on them) and so
are starting from the ground up.


>The real Esquivel of the Moog wood have to be Dick Hyman! I love his Moog
>records, though they are pretty cheesy.

You are sooooo right! I stand corrected!
And I actually like both Esquivel and Ferante and Ticher (in a perverse sorta
way) -- though Esquivel is much more the genius of arrangements. I also like
Stereolab!
JB