Duras: Duchamp
from: Tzadik
Your Price: $16.98
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Sales Rank: 266550
Sales Rank: 266550
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Music : Duras: Duchamp |
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Rating:  - * the books; given ... this recording can best be described as chamber music, a tribute to a couple of french artists, marguerite duras, author, and marcel duchamp, conceptual artist, in his case, his last work, etant donnes. the piece, duras, is as much a tribute to french composer, olivier messiaen, as duras, so expect to hear bird sounds and stretches evocative of messiaen's quartet for the end of time. during the first book (premiere livre) anthony coleman on piano introduces a melody that is a variation of billy strayhorn's lush life. other personnel: mark feldman and cenovia cummins on violins, john medeski on organ, and christine bard and jim pugliese on percussion instruments. etant donnes, 69 paroxysms for marcel duchamp, is given almost completely to the percussionists, listen for the birds, the shattering glass, shoveling, hammering, water trickling. duchamp, a conceptualist, who abandoned the canvas pretty much became a workman, a craftsman, and the noises, identifiable to a worksite or small factory, contextual to duchamp's projects, are captured by zorn. personnel on etant donnes are feldman on violin, erik friedlander on cello and the percussion chores handled by jim pugliese. both pieces are composed and conducted by john zorn. modern music, highly enjoyable. Rating: - * Zorn in tribute. ... "Duras: Duchamp" is John Zorn's composed tribute to writer/filmmaker Marguirite Duras and artist Marcel Duchamp. "Duras" is a suite presented in four movements, "Etant Donnes" is described as "69 paroxysms for Marcel Duchamp". Both fall in the field of Zorn's longform composed works. "Duras" is performed by a sextet of violinists Mark Feldman and Cenovia Cummins, keyboardists Anthony Coleman (on piano) and John Medeski (on organ), and percussionists Christine Bard and Jim Pugliese. The first movement opens with pairings and trios performing brief snatches of melody, first piano supported by organ, then organ and triangle, then vibes, then very quiet violins, and so on. This sort of passing around of melody and sound continues for the length of the first movement (about 15 minutes). By and large, its remarkably coherent and satisfying-- one gets the impression it's by and large the same themes you're hearing, just contorted drastically, because even though they don't sound the same, there's an enormous sense of unity. This becomes more apparent in the remainder of the piece-- the second movement, performed by violins and percussion, feels a bit more fractured but coherent (and more in line with Zorn's classical work), but the third movement really finds the piece settling down. Organ and solo violin maintain drones under which an occasional swirl of percussion emerges-- it's really quite a pretty and moving thing, similar in feeling to the work of Brian Eno, and its sense of melancholy and foreboding keeps hearing essentially the same thing over and over again engaging. The piece's brief final movement finds a hazy backdrop over which aggressive violin solos-- more direct and melodic then virtually anything on here, recalling Harold Budd's work. In the end, you're left with a rather fractured portrait of Duras-- someone I'm afraid I know little about, but who is painted by Zorn as evocative and moody. "Etant Donnes" is a reflection of its subject-- performed by a trio of Feldman, Erik Friedlander (cello), and Pugliese, it is by and large a reflection of its subject-- percussion, scratches, fractured string breaks, and so on-- indeed as Zorn stated, it seems to be 69 brief moments composing the 13+ minute track. Given Marcel Duchamp's place in art history (from Cubism to Dada-- he was the one who drew the moustache on a copy of the Mona Lisa to composition of artwork with found objects), this sort of fractured and associative composition works. While it's not the thing of lovely beauty and rewarding interplay that many of Zorn's composed pieces are, it is nonetheless entertaining and rewarding in its own right. Bottom line-- "Duras: Duchamp" is a fine record. Recommended. Rating: - * Two tributes ... Although this album has five tracks, it has only two songs. The first song, dedicated to M. Duras, is played in four movements (and indexed that way on the CD). The movements come in pairs: a long one followed by a brief coda, then another long one with a coda. The music flows so well that you don't notice these little details. The piece is played with piano, light percussion, and strings. The musicians play subtle, gentle sounds. You'll hear a little melody, then some drumming, and then the sound of birds chirping in the background. Then a violin quietly comes in . . . and drifts away. One sound fades as another begins. This is one of John Zorn's most enigmatic ambient compositions. If you hear it twice, you'll be hooked. The final track is a 13-minute tribute to M. Duchamp. For this "song," Zorn "plays" all kinds of objects. He smacks blocks of wood together, pounds a nail, drops coins into a dish, etc. He even gurgles into a mug and then coughs. This might sound kind of stupid, but it actually works in a weird way. It's not music, but it does feel *composed*. I recommend this album to anyone who enjoys avant-garde classical music, and anyone who wants to explore John Zorn's non-jazz, non-noise music. If you're in an adventurous mood and have a good sense of humor, you'll like it. Rating:  - * Surrealistic Nightmare Music ... John Zorn has made a career out of stylistic diversity. His musical intellect is mecurial and cannot be kept within a few projects or styles, but instead jumps around from style to style and records the results obsessively. This can make pinning him down dearly impossible, but makes each new release you hear an adventure. Duras/Duchamp falls into the broad genre of studio compositions. Zorn's studio compositions are often an interesting mix of chamber music sensibility, electronic effects, collage techniques, and improvisations which often sound as if they were the soundtrack to some imaginary film. In this way they can be similar to Zorn's actual film work. But they are more formally composed than Zorn's film music, with less reliance on cartoon music montage and more sustained moods. As such I find the studio pieces to be among Zorn's most polished and satisfying work. The long work on this disc is Duras. Named for the engimatic novelist (was she a heroine of the French resistance or a Nazi collaborator? The world may never know for sure.) who's most famous book The Lover, is one of the most disturbing erotic novels in history, Duras is a multimovement work. It generates most of it's effect through rather traditional means. But for a few "found sounds" on tape, the work could be a concert hall piece. It stays at a low level throughout, giving it some relation to ambient music, but it's details are much more interesting. It is not a loop piece, but genuinely through composed and compelling. Duchamp is a bit more dadaist in conception. Much of the work could be described as Satie run through a distorting mirror as heard by a guy on a bad acid trip. If this sounds weird, it is. And that's what makes it compelling listening. Zorn rarely goes for a listeners comfort level and this piece pleases and disturbs in equal measure. I've listened to this disc now several times and the work on it grow more compelling with each hearing. This is definately one of Zorn's high water marks. Rating: - * A Classic.! ... From all those who like surrealism, it is a must! Never heard anything like that before!!This time Zorn went so far that it really changed the way I compose my pieces. |
