Sunday, February 10, 2008

mothertongue

worky weekend, given powerful vibes of purpose and spiritual uplift by the music of occasz-mentioned CC'03mate yung Nico Muhly, subject of a lengthy and perceptive profile in this week's New Yorker - between dude and the dynamic Ros/Tomson VW duo, it's really been an acclaimed year for the Columbia music program, no? the article's nice and worth a read, but the part I'm really gonna keep coming back to is -

"In the classical world, it’s, like, bad, or too popular, to produce a lot, but you learn such a lot by listening to a piece and, literally, not being able to stop it,” Muhly told me. “It feels to me more like food, in that sense. People need to eat. You may as well make them something to eat."

- so true, and inspiringly modest! and unlike my generally ambivalent feelings about actual food I'm always hungry for these kinds of pieces, beautifully constructed, emotionally stirring yet pleasingly complex compositions with strong roots in the Christian choral vibes that resonate so strongly with my own experiences with the sacred growing up. all the tunes up on the New Yorker player are pretty great, but the "Mothertongue" "Sanctus & Benedictus" "Keep in Touch" troika is particularly felt -

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"mothertongue" is awesome. although totally original, also reminds me of steve reich's work, particularly music for 18 musicians, for which reich, seemingly, scored the blood running thru my fckn veins. if you don't know that piece, check it out! (also, electric counterpoint, also different trains.)

johnnn said...

yeah, def familiar with and love 18 musicians, though not the others! given his background working w glass and his modestly post-modern, ecumenical/culinary aesthetic, I'm sure Nico would happily acknowledge the common thread. are you giving your own Nico a steady diet of modern minimalism etc? you know, I saw this LaMonte Young alap ensemble play for like 3 hours on Friday night, which I'll prob write up later and was ridiculously beautiful if a little boring after awhile, and at least one woman (maybe two? I forget) had a baby with her. thought it was a pretty good investment in her child's ear-future