Arts – Page 22 – An Echo That's Reversing

New Complexity

(I’m not sure how I encountered this. Some sort of internet spelunking but who-knows-where.)

New Complexity is a composition style that originated in the 80s, consisting of inconceivably difficult music with beautifully difficult scores. Upon first listening, I felt that it was just a rehash of mid-century serial technique, at least in expressiveness. I fell into the “I’m smart enough to understand this immediately” trap of the moderately informed. It is instead yet something different and contains more performance/conceptual art aspects that put the responsibility of process on the performer as a way to manifest the ideas in the score. It may be a pendulum swing from what has been called the “downtown” style of minimalism that appeared in the late 60s/early 70s, which was itself a pendulum swing away from the atonality of decades prior. No style completely disappears, but I am happy to see a rhythmically- and harmonically-difficult style return.

The Hellcats (1968), MST3K, The Moonfire Inn

Early in the movie, the Army Sergeant hero going undercover ends up at The Moonfire Inn to infiltrate those rapscalious (?), brother-killing bikers in their local haunt. When watching bad 70s movies and I see a named restaurant or bar, or a phone number, I get obsessed with a search for any remnants of it that may still exist. Either to see a record that it once-had-been or to see it manifest in its current form. When I was reading S.T.A.R. Flight (1969), there was an insert for the DeVry Institute (yes, that one) that was to be mailed back to 4141 Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL 60641 and I had to screen cap the current street view. (When my dad no longer was, one artifact left behind that fascinated me was a jar of matchbooks from various restaurants and hotels he ate and stayed at as a salesman throughout the 70s and 80s. Since then, I wanted to create a blog with an entry for each matchbook and what could be discovered of its origin. Still a good idea (and TBD) but probably a manifestation rather than source of my obsession.)

Orchestral Study #2, updated audio

Orchestral Study #2 (driving and chaotic), updated audio and original audio

Orchestral Studies, updated audio

Orchestral Study #1 (flowing and hymn-like), audio 1b

Orchestral Study #2 (driving and chaotic), audio 1b

Orchestral Study #3 (adagio with melisma), audio 1b

Orchestral Study #4 (allegro), audio 1b

I’m working on updating the audio for my 12 Orchestral Studies from their original MIDI output, using Dorico notation software and its HALion instrument libraries. I will probably just work on a few of the 12 in order to learn the new software and to not re-hash the pieces that really don’t deserve re-hashing. First one is the first one.

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Die Teufel von Loudun

Some random notes:

I was looking for more modern operas to watch after I rewatched Wozzeck and Lulu on DVD recently. The performance of the reduced arrangement of Ligeti’s opera Mysteries of the Macabre rekindled my research.