Good Morning

Ligeti

Popped into town for the second half-price lunch. Today I had the rump steak with jacket potato, peas, and an egg. They had run out of mushrooms!

I also called in at Past Sentence and sold some paperbacks for a fiver.

I started listening to a five-CD box of Gyorgy Ligeti.




Gyorgy Ligeti - Clocks and Clouds

Ligeti's "Clocks and Clouds" is a relatively-short composition from 1972-1973 that takes its title from Karl Popper's 1966 philosophical essay "Of Clouds and Clocks". In this, Popper makes a compelling and easily-understood argument that scientific phenomena can be broken down into two main categories. The "clocks" are things that we can depend on such as, well, clocks. A clock can be easily measured, taken apart, and reconstructed. "Clouds", on the other hand, are things that we can only get a general, macroscopic view of -- things whose inner-workings we are unable to understand in a deterministic way. A cloud cannot be easily measured nor can it be taken apart. Furthermore, Popper argues that clouds are really made up of a cumbersome number of clocks -- so many that the whole cannot be understood completely. It isn't at all surprising that the meteorologist Edward Lorenz was making major breakthroughs in what we now tend to call "chaos theory" -- most easily defined by a sensitivity to initial conditions. Lorenz's major work in this area is known as "The Butterfly Effect" from the famous question he posed "can the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Oklahoma?"

Throughout the 1960s, Ligeti was composed in two distinct styles described perfectly by Popper's essay. The "clouds" category includes works such as "Atmospheres" (1961), Lontano (1967), and the first movement from his "Cello Concerto" (1966). Examples of pieces falling under the "clocks" description are the third movement of his "Chamber Concerto" (1969) and the third movement of his "String Quartet No. 2" (1968). This "mechanical" style can be traced back to his semi-comical 1962 "Poem Symphonique pour 100 Metronomes", in which 100 metronomes are wound-up and left to unwind at various tempos.

While compositions such as the "Chamber Concerto" and "String Quartet No. 2" do include both "clouds" and "clocks", they are presented in separate movements. It is in "Clocks and Clouds" where Ligeti seamlessly connects one to the other. Being one of his last works in this micropolyphonic style, it is a great summing up of a stylistic period.

Tuesday Music Selection

Time for some more music -

New Order - Vanishing Point

Mogwai - Take Me Somewhere Nice

Bark Psychosis - Pendulum Man

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -  Into My Arms

Enjoy.

Wire Top 100 Of 20th Century Music #19

Back to that June 1992 issue of Wire.

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Husker Du - Reoccurring Dreams

Minor Threat - In My Eyes

Madonna - Into The Groove

Enjoy.

Wire Top 100 Of 20th Century Music #20

And finally, the last part of this review -

Udokotela Shange Namajaha - Awungilobolele

Mr.Fingers - Washing Machine

Ami Koita - Tata Sira

Public Enemy - Bring The Noise

The only one I could not do as i cannot find it on YouTube is the Cecil Taylor In Berlin 88 album. This album swept all jazz Polls in 1990.

Anyway, this exhaustive list is now complete. Enjoy all 20 selections.

CD Collection Photo

Here is a photo of just a very small selection from my CD collection.




The Ligeti set is to the left of Manhattan Research double CD set. Notice the Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Schubert Editions and can of course.



Just another taser. Some jazz, some classical and other genres.

Good Night