Iain Cameron's Diary
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2003-03-14 - 7:54 a.m.

I am listening to John Zorn�s piece for SQ - Cat O Nine Tails - which I bought in Brussels in the record shop which Gilbert suggested when we had a few beers one night. It was written in 1988 - the same year Zorn wrote For Your Eyes Only which I have just heard performed superbly by the Britten Sinfonia at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham. I can hear similarities between the two works � both episodic and poly-stylistic.

The other Zorn piece on the programme was Angelus Novus which he wrote five years later and which according to the programme notes marks a change of direction in terms of the start of his radical Jewish music phase.

The first time I heard Zorn was at Barbican where I especially went to hear Fred on lead guitar. Bill Laswell was on bass and a devastatingly good Death Metal drummer made up the 4tet. I enjoyed the music a lot � this was probably 1999 � and I thought I could see pretty clear where it was coming from. In today�s world it was heavy rock abstract expressionism � mixing new wave jazz with a big beat � probably pretty much taken out of the air in situ. On the strength of that I bought the Spaghetti Western album in Dearborn when I saw it which I think is earlier even than 1988 � again I could see some linkage - say with Henry Cow � Fred plays on this too. I suppose I can see how one might move from that spaghetti stuff to the 1988 postmodernism. � you might even call that music high postmodernism

I have advanced the CD to The Dead Man which is 13 short pieces for SQ from 1990. Zorn explains that this music arises from applying sado-masochistic principles to Weben�s Bagatelles. (I have a piece called Anton�s got a Brand New Bag) So I suppose I ought not to be surprised.

The big surprise for me in Angelus Novus was the way I thought it reflected the techniques of Lamont Young � one of the movements opens with oboes doing multiphonics sustained for quite a long time. As this went on I began to hear some of those glorious high harmonic reinforcements happening � I was sitting about fifteen feet away. There is a lot of noise content in The Dead Man � but it is not easy to record the LmY effect which is one of the reasons why there are hardly any recordings of the music � you only really get the effect in a live performance.

So its harder to see if this is common to both pieces.

I have just been dredging the Zorn-Duckworth interview � probably done around 93/94 � for more clues:

�It doesn�t matter whether its jazz or blues or classical they�re all the same. There�s a very deep element of quotation in my music which is something that relates to Ives very directly. But its quotation also in the way that, say, Berg liked to play games with himself � the way Webern liked to play games with pitches. I have a piece, Cat O Nine Tails that�s filled not just with quotation after quotation but with tribute after tribute�

He goes on to talk about Cat O Nine Tails as a cartoon piece � more on that subject later. Cartoons were big on tonight�s programme.

RIGHT � this is it � about Momento Mori 1992. JZ says �This is an intensely emotional piece and it is completely hermetic continuing to defy comprehension. I feel that I have come across something completely new here and if you let it it will take you on a journey to the inner depths of a place you have never been before.� This links with the Angelus piece which the programme notes describes as having greater structural maturity than the cartoons � something about form story-telling and cartoons here.

Momento Mori must be the one to concentrate on � although I have to say just now it sounds as if it has got a lot in common with the Lyric Suite. Well that piece started Bartok off on a journey to 6 SQs. Ah yes � there�s a LmY moment near the end of Momento Mori.

Today�s concert featured a lot of overtly cartoon stuff and I was initially pretty hostile to that strain. Fortunately to start there were four pieces by Zappa � two for wind 5tet � and then Be Bop Tango and Music for Low Budget Orchestra. I thought this all stood up pretty well and was very well played to boot. But then came the Angelus which was an even better surprise. (By the way Angelus is dedicated to Walter Benjamin � who was like Adorno but generally more fun eg writing about Baudelaire.)

All the cartoon material must have been in the second half which opened with John Woodrich�s Music from a House of Crossed Desires � rather a serious title for a cartoon. I was very very taken by the timbral range in this piece � I know nothing about the composer but apparently he is an associated composer to the Britten Orchestra. If I saw a recording of this I �d certainly buy it even though it couldn�t sound as good as this performance experience. ( Maybe there is something spectral about Woodrich � he uses the complete sound spectrum � there was even an amplified ocarina.) The concert finished with the classic Zorn piece For Your Eyes Only which would fit may people�s idea of what post modernist music might sound like. If you were being catty you would say that it is music for people with short attention spans.

But between Woodrich and Zorn they did Janacek�s Rikadia � from 1926. I didn�t know anything about this and wasn�t looking forward to it. It transpires that it is one of the earliest cartoon pieces ever � J actually wanted the cartoons included in the score to help with the interpretation. Basically it is a set of songs � for 2 sopranos 2 altos 2 tenors and 3 basses plus a small orchestra � and the piano does a lot of the work. My references for it were the Stravinsky songs that he wrote when he was doing short pieces during the First World War, to Satie and to Da Da. I once spent a lot of time trying to link those Stravinsky songs to Pink Moon � I think I went via the Soldier�s Tale to Weill and then used the Alabamma Song to jump to 1967 � which was a bit of a trick. I am not sure I would try this again but if I were trying to write that again I would include Wolpe and this Janacek stuff on the path. Again if I see a reasonably priced recording I ll stump up. Maybe the idea here is that there is a Da Da tradition of short songs with relatively simple vocal lines which carry darker meanings into which Pink Moon seems to fit.

I have to say the Britten lot sounded even better than when I heard them in Cambridge about 4 or 5 years ago when they played Noncarrow Zappa and Reich. I had just heard Music for 18 Musicians live and they played the other large orchestral piece Reich did just afterwards that isn�t really as good as the masterwork in most people�s opinion. The 18 Musos had been performed in the presence of the composer and I imagine he helped with the rehearsals � he certainly explained to the audience how the music was assembled. So I felt that the Britten ensemble Reich rendering lacked something or though that could have been the composer�s fault. This was not a feeling I had at all this evening at the CBSO Centre.

Gilbert mailed to say that he�d got the CDR from his ND recital and he liked it � I must say I can�t wait to hear it.

Andre mailed about Tintagel.

I thought Orlando�s comments about composing were very interesting indeed. You can�t help but think of the changes in Zorn�s style in similar terms.

I see from the ND list that Scott Appel has died of a heart attack � rest in peace seem especially appropriate.

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