mmm051 Sunday, February, 2015: Score Reading of Penderecki's "Passio"
[to witness the feature-length movie go here: http://youtu.be/28AAI3PZ1u8 ]
m(usic(ian's)m(eeting) 51: Score Reading of Penderecki's "Passio" - 2015.02.15
Attendees:
tENT
Matt
Brian
Zach
The main 'minutes' for this are the movie. The YouTube notes from that are 1st here, followed by the paltry written minutes provided:
"mm 51: Score Reading: Penderecki's "Passio"" is a quasi-document of the 51st m(usic(ian's))m(eeting) at which a 4 record set was played of a performance of Krzysztof Penderecki's 1965 "Passio et Mors Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Lucam" ("The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke") as performed by the Boys' chorus, mixed chorus, & orchestra of the Cracow Philharmonia. Simultaneously with this playing, the 4 attendees, myself, Matt Aelmore, Brian Riordan, & Zachary Haras, followed along by looking at the score & trying to understand & appreciate it at the same time that we felt free to casually interject comments. This process took place in Pittsburgh on February 15, 2015. I'm not a Christian & generally find religion to be destructive of human intelligence. Nonetheless, I have to give credit to the Catholic Church, which I otherwise abhor, for supporting great music by the likes of Penderecki, Messiaen, & Zimmermann. Perhaps the 'genius' of the Catholic Church is in recognizing when it 'needs' to co-opt in order to stay abreast of contemporary developments. Penderecki's score would've probably gotten him burnt at the stake not so long ago but now is now & then was then & his tone cluster drones & meticulous ambiguities can now become 'canonized' (even if there's a hidden discomfort) - as long as it ends on a Picardy Third, eh? - February 25, 2015 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
Tags: Krzysztof Penderecki, Passio et Mors Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Lucam, The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke, Cracow Philharmonia, Matt Aelmore, Brian Riordan, Zachary Haras, score reading, twentieth century music, classical music, experimental music, mm, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE
Matt & Brian arrive 9ish
tENT talks about Source magazine & Larry Austin
Zach arrives
Talking about Stockhausen b/c there's a trialogue between him, Robert Ashley & Austin in the Source bk that tENT has
tENT shows all his Stockhausen records & some of the CDs
We make the movie of following Krzysztof Penderecki's score to his 1965 "Passio et Mors Domini Nostri Iesu Christi Secondum Lucam" while we play it on record.
Matt identifies the symbol used to direct the reader's eye to lower parts of the cut-away score as a "caesura". tENT is unconvinced that that's its actual name.
SO, tENT later looks up the term on wikipedia & finds this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesura
In meter, a caesura (Latin: caedere); alternative spellings are cæsura and cesura) is a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition.[1] The plural form of caesura is caesurae. In poetry, a masculine caesura follows a stressed syllable while a feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable. A caesura is also described by its position in a line of poetry. A caesura close to the beginning of a line is called an initial caesura, one in the middle of a line is medial, and one near the end of a line is terminal. Initial and terminal caesurae were rare in formal, Romance, and Neoclassical verse, which preferred medial caesurae. In scansion, poetry written with signs to indicate the length and stress of syllables, the "double pipe" sign ("||") is used to denote the position of a caesura.
In musical notation, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. Similar to a silent fermata, caesurae are located between notes or measures (before or over bar lines), rather than on notes or rests (as with a fermata). A fermata may be placed over a caesura to indicate a longer pause.
In musical notation, the symbol for a caesura is a pair of parallel lines set at an angle, rather like a pair of forward slashes: //. The symbol is popularly called "tram-lines" in the U.K. and "railroad tracks" in the U.S.
tENT still can't decide whether Matt's correct (even tho he probably is) b/c the symbol in the score is closer to horizontal & the symbol on wikipedia is almost vertical. Perhaps it's a particular type of caesura not really described in the wikipedia entry?
There's some talk of Penderecki's symphonies being terrible neo-romantic stuff. tENT can't remember if he's heard them so after the mm he digs out a CD he has of #s 2 & 4 & listens to them & remembers why he doesn't remember them: b/c they're mediocre neoromantic stuff. Maybe Penderecki's composing stuff like this b/c he wants to make sure that his work will continue to be performed after his death.
In tENT's further exploration of Penderecki he also digs out the soundtrack to the incredible Polish movie made contemporaneously w/ the score examined: "The Manuscript Found At Saragossa". Did anybody see this movie at the last 3 Rivers Film Festival? It was amazing.
Matt & Brian & Zach leave around midnight.
to the mm index
forward to mm 52
backward to mm 50
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page
to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page
to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience
to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important
for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH
to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)