MIND DE-CODER 57

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In his 1781 page-turner, the Critique of Pure Reason, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant warned that the human brain has to impose an order onto the world that it doesn’t possess purely to make sense of it. Otherwise, as Kant candidly puts it, “all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves, would disappear.” This is possibly why I’m such a big fan of acid…

                                                                               Ingram Paige

CLAUDE DEBUSSY     PRÉLUDE À L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE

…or Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun, to give it it’s English title. This evocative and supremely sensual tone poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy is a musical evocation of Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem “Afternoon of a Faun”, in which a faun — a half-man, half-goat creature of ancient Greek legend (think Mr. Tumnus, if you have to) — awakes to revel in sensuous memories of the forest nymphs (or perhaps not). The original orchestral version was completed in 1894, and is generally considered a quintessential example of musical Impressionism, a compositional style popular at the turn of the 20th century, influenced by the artistic school of the same name; a movement whose music focused on suggestion and atmosphere, conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone‐picture, as it were. Turns out I’m quite the fan of this sort of thing. David Toop, in his impressive book Oceans of Sound, and its sequel, Exotica, argues that Debussy’s impressionistic soundscapes were the direct precursor of what we’ve come to call ambient music, as music sought to make sense of the sound of the 20^th century, a position I’ve become fascinated with myself here on Mind De-Coder. It’s not about escapism; it’s about the sound of yourself listening.

EDWARD MACDOWELL     TO A WILD ROSE

This lovely piano piece lasts a mere minute and a half, but despite its brevity and modest character, it has become one of the most popular piano works by the American composer. This is taken from one of his most famous suites called WOODLAND SKETCHES FOR PIANO, OP. 51, written in 1896, as a collection of mood pieces for piano.  To A Wild Rose has a beautiful, gentle simplicity to it that captures the serene woodland setting of his family home in New Hampshire.

JOHANN PACHELBEL     CANON AND GIGUE, FOR 3 VIOLINS AND BASSO CONTINUO IN D MAJOR

…or the Canon in D major as it’s more popularly known – a canon, in this case, being a contrapuntal compositional technique that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration, or what we call a polyphonic device in which several voices play the same music, entering in sequence (but then, I expect you already knew that). Originally composed 1694, it was apparently lost for some time before being rediscovered in the early 20^th century. Since then, of course, it’s become a popular addition to many a fairly posh wedding or classical music compilation, but that was never going to be a barrier to its inclusion in the show. After listening to a great deal of classical music recently I‘ve come to the conclusion that, rather like the ‘best of’ Simon and Garfunkel compilation that every home has (bear with me on this one), the reason that the same popular classical hits keep appearing on those popular classical compilation albums is because they really are the best pieces of classical music ever – the rest is either too histrionic or just goes on a bit. It’s the same with Simon and Garfunkel – as a fan of their ‘best of’ album for years, I eventually decided to buy all of their albums proper, curious as to what hidden treasures might be hidden away on them. Turns out that the reason that all those songs on their ‘best of’ album were actually chosen is because they were literally the ‘best of Simon and Garfunkel’ – the rest aren’t any good at all; no hidden treasures, no undiscovered gems; no reason to own them at all really. Stick with the 'best of', that's what I say, and it's never done me any harm with Leonard Cohen, either. There’s a reason some things are popular – it’s because they’re the good ones. As it happens, I’m something of a fan of this actual piece and was hard pressed to know what version to use from the many I possess, when none of them are quite as good as the memory I have of the first version I ever heard on one of those Soothing Instrumental Sounds From The Scottish Chamber Orchestra type albums that you used to be able to buy in Woolworths for ₤1.25 up until about 1984 (although, in this instance, it really was by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and if anyone can forward me a link to that particular version you will not find me ungrateful). I don’t know what a gigue is, or a basso continuo, and I can’t quite be bothered to Google either of them, wishing for some small element of mystery to remain in my life, but I defy anyone to not like this piece of music in whatever interpretation it arrives. It is both musically satisfying and very hummable whilst out a-ambling late one morning in Spring, perhaps; but did you know that the piece's chordal progression has been appropriated in numerous commercial pop hits too, with such hits as the Pet Shop Boys cover of Go West, Coolio's C U When U Get There and Green Day's Basket Case all owing a little something to it? Pop music producer Pete Waterman, who now, in the age of Simon Cowell seems to have been quite harmless after all, described Canon in D as almost “the godfather of pop music because we've all used that in our own ways for the past 30 years". He also said that Kylie Minogue's 1988 UK Number One hit single I Should Be So Lucky, which he co-wrote and co-produced, was based on Canon in D, which just goes to show.

BRIAN ENO     FULLNESS OF THE WIND

Brian Eno was a fan, too. In fact, so intrigued was he by Pachelbel’s skillful weaving of a strict polyphonic form (the canon) with a variation form (the chaconne, which itself is a mixture of ground bass composition and variations) that he recorded it three times with the Cockpit Ensemble, collectively titled Three Variations On The Canon In D Major By Johann Pachelbel, for side 2 of his 1975 release, DISCREET MUSIC. Eno selected short excerpts from the Canon with instructions to the musicians on how often to repeat said sections and when to alter those sections by changing the tempo or other elements. The elements change over time by having the parts slow at differing intervals or using different lengths of the musical score resulting in a work of, what can only be called, placid beauty.

OTTO LUENING     MOONFLIGHT

Otto Luening was an American-German composer who, in the 1950’s, with fellow composer Vladimir Ussachevsky helped to establish the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, where they created a landmark series of collaborative compositions for magnetic tape and synthesizer, as well as pioneering works for acoustic instruments in combination with electronic sounds. This track is taken from one of their major works, TAPE MUSIC AN HISTORIC CONCERT, recorded live at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1952, but not actually released until 1968, by which time the term was well-deserved, by having radically changed the face of contemporary musical composition. Moonflight is a dreamy and mysterious piece created by the layering of flute sounds on top of a base folksong-like melody, developed through diminution, retrogradation, augmentation, and distortion to create a complex pattern that is only possible by making use of the tape recorder, which also just goes to show, too.

GYÖRGY LIGETI     ATMOSPHÈRES

Atmosphères is a piece for full orchestra, composed by György Ligeti in 1961 with the South West German Radio Orchestra, and then snapped up by Stanley Kubrick for the intro to his 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is where you’ve probably heard it before. It is noted for eschewing conventional melody and metre in favour of dense sound textures, or what Ligeti himself referred to as micropolyphonic texture, or the sort of music you slip onto the stereo when your guests have over-stayed their welcome. It exemplifies Ligeti's notion of static, self-contained music without either development or traditional rhythmic configurations, which evokes a sense of timelessness in which the listener is lost in a web of texture and tonality. Very effectively, I might add.

GABRIEL FAURÉ     PIE JESU, AGNUS DEI

Faure’s sublime lullaby to death, REQUIEM IN D MINOR, Op. 48, composed 1890-ish, is one of those rare works that can cause even the most cynical of us to seek comfort in music that seeks to expand our perception of the numinous. Sadly I couldn’t play it all, but this particular version, performed by Coro e Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in 1999, features an achingly beautiful rendition of Pie Jesu by Cecilia Bartoli that is pretty much transcendental in its loveliness. I follow it with Agnus Dei simply to give you time to draw breath again.

SAMUEL BARBER     ADAGIO FOR STRINGS

This lovely piece, written by Barker in 1936 as part of his larger STRING QUARTET, OP. 11, is also regarded, in some circles, as one of the saddest pieces of music ever, more so even than Gloomy Sunday, say, the semi-infamous Hungarian Suicide Song written by Rezső Seress and immortalised by Billie Holiday. Others have found it imbued with pathos and cathartic passion (that would be the loud bit), but I find it nothing less than delightful, myself.

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH     PRELUDE AND FUGUE NO. 22 IN B FLAT MINOR

Bach’s WELL–TEMPERED CLAVIER, dated 1742, a collection of solo keyboard music, from which this piece is taken, is generally considered as being among the most influential works in the history of Western classical music. A bit of research reveals that a clavier refers to any keyboard instrument; especially baroque-era instruments such as the harpsichord, the clavichord or, indeed, the fortepiano. Scholars, though, have been heatedly debating for years over what Bach actually meant by ‘well-tempered’ - did he mean circular temperament, equal temperament or meantone temperament, all of which goes straight over my head as I revel in the simple loveliness of the music itself.

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN     NOCTURNE IN B FLAT MINOR, OP. 9 No. 1

I don’t know much about classical music but I know what I like, and what I’m a particular fan of is your nocturnes, those delightful, slightly melancholic piano pieces inspired by, and reflective of, the twilight and early evening (entirely incidentally, I’m a fan of the Soft Hearted Scientists for much the same reason). The most famous exponent of the form, of course, was Frédéric Chopin, who wrote 21 of them between 1827 and 1846. Nocturnes are generally thought of as being tranquil, often expressive and lyrical, and sometimes rather gloomy, but I understand some of them can get quite frisky at times; for myself, I prefer the ones that capture that moment of the evening just before you need to turn the lights on, but just after your first glass of wine.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS     FANTASIA ON A THEME BY THOMAS TALLIS/THE LARK ASCENDING (excerpt)

You see, I absolutely had to play The Lark Ascending, but having heard Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis for the first time last week I realised I had to play that too, so I reached a compromise where I played both but only give you the bit you really know from Lark Ascending. Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis is everything I was looking for when I began wondering if there was such a as psychedelic classical music; its complex weave of folksong, hymnal and mystic atmosphere is nothing short of visionary, and it blew me away when I first heard it. It was written by Vaughan in 1910, and as it turns out it’s quite popular amongst those who are familiar with classical music – last year listeners to Classic FM voted it into third place on the station’s Hall of Fame. Which just goes to show. I wonder how many of them would feel upon hearing Venus In Furs for the first time? The Lark Ascending, of course, it right up there (that wasn’t necessarily a pun) at the top of favourite English classical recordings and deservedly so – it’s slice of pastoral whimsy served up with cream teas, cricket on the village green and church fayres that just dreams itself along. Written in 1914 while Britain prepared itself for war, it has about it an air of eulogy as well as a celebration of a glorious English summer morn, but I still only played the first part. Was that a mistake?

THE BEACH BOYS     WIND CHIMES

Don’t ask me how the Beach Boys turned up in a classical set, but I was listening to their previously unloved album SMILEY SMILE the other day, the one cobbled together from pieces of the aborted Smile sessions in 1967, when I began to appreciate that I was really enjoying it; that it was, in fact, pretty far out in its own right, and that Wind Chimes in particular had a devotional quality to it that was almost transcendental. After realising all this, of course, I included it in the show.

GREGORIO ALEGRI     MISERE MEI, DEUS

When it comes to music of a devotional nature, however, Alegri’s Misere Mei, Deus does kind of win the prize for the most transcendentalist-ist-est. You might say that it almost wrote the book, except, of course, that it didn’t; because at some point in history it became forbidden to transcribe it. This is the piece of music that the 14 year old Mozart famously wrote down entirely from memory after hearing it once performed in the Sistine Chapel. Based upon Psalm 51, Misere Mei, Deus (Have Mercy On Me, O God) is now one of the most popular a cappella works now performed. Its ethereal qualities cause goosebumps every time I hear it.

ERIK SATIE     GNOSSIENES NO. 1

…and so to ERIK SATIE who, as an early 20th-century French composer, used Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient music that he labelled furniture music (your musique d'ameublement, to be precise). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention – the likes of Brian Eno and The Orb knew exactly what he was getting at. It was too obvious to play out with a gymnopédies, so I chose, instead, a gnossienes, a musical form invented by Satie lacking time signatures or bar divisions and highly experimental with form, rhythm and chordal structure. Written down it looks like it should be a mess but it is, in fact, quite lovely. Gnossienes No.1 was composed around 1890 as part of the TROIS GNOSSIENES, which were published in 1893; like everything else I’ve played this evening, it has a appeared on a number of film soundtracks (no music snob, me – give ‘em what they know, that’s my motto here on Mind De-Coder; well, one of them, anyway) which is where you’ve probably heard it before. To my untutored ear it reminds me of what I look for in one of Chopin’s Nocturnes, which seems as good a place to leave the show as any.

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