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I can die now
I've been to paradise and it's not bad
I've had the best time ever
I'd regret not having more, but
I don't think I could get much happier
When finally enough of them showed up, we traded crazy silly music clips, including the peppy insanity that is Romanian boy band, and the rangy insanity that is dutchdivas.org. And then drooled at the library, listened to the Randall Thompson Alleluia (I'd sung it that morning at investiture, and they needed to hear it) at Jones, and forgot my keys when we went back to the house and out to eat (yay Chinese buffet with enchiladas). Luckily the ticket counter at Stude recognized me from the night before and let me buy six student tickets with no id. They needed to hear that concert. Rachleff turned around after the first four bars of the Vaughan Williams to chide a really loud cougher and started the piece over, and then a cell phone rang twice, in the key. But then the concert went on, and was so perfect and the pieces were so good, and the encore again... It was inspiring.
So when we went back to the house, we were inspired. Bryce played me Erlkoenig to sing, and then the rest of us improvised. I have tapes. We could so be a rock band as well as the uncertain outcome of improvising for several hours. On the roof, with two cellos, an accordion, Einstein-on-the-beach-style counting, singing, Rumi poetry set to call/response Russian Vespers, screeching, and fire on the roof. With the moon. Which is, according to Andrew, pentatonic. Till 1 in the morning. It's a bird, it's a plane, no! It's classical improv! I called us off at 1 and we went downstairs (or ladder) and listened to fun stuff and went out to the garage apartment and watched Led Zeppelin DVDs until 4. It's amazing the kind of feedback you can get on them from people who both know something about music and admire the simplicity and straightforwardness of rock. And want a band. Yes.
Then we went back into the house and slept. You're right. It was not cold.
I woke up to the tune of Andrew's discovery of the flute and the trumpet. That was interesting. And lying there talking about it with nowhere urgent to go, no agenda, is one of the nicest feelings I've ever had. Once again, after more cheesecake, we played the Alexander game and improvised a bit once Rainey came, though Andrew left before we got anything good. But once we did, man. More Rumi Vespers, though more like dramatic readings and responses this time. A nicely compact-themed bit of 3 3 2 improv, some more piratey bits... Some of the riffs we came up with were worthy of a rock song. I'll see what I can do. We have tapes.
Once it was time, we went to the modern music concert, at which was played an incredibly virtuosic array of piano pieces. Cage, Glass, Ligeti, Ginastera, Corigliano, Liebermann (the Gargoyles!), a jazz standard, and a world premiere of a Noarian piece (he wrote it in tribute to Avalon). I give up any pianistic ambition I ever had, which is saying something. Augh. And then the wrench of separation, and I listened to the 11 minutes of the maddes, saddest thing ever.
I've heard the piece develop over the three years I've known him, and until recently it was just three motives and a couple of transitional scales. Avalon had been trying to get him to do more with the motives than just repeat them, and I listened to this recording and cried for half an hour. he tried to remember a lot of things when he was composing it, including what Avalon had said about developing melodies and which parts I liked and how 9th-grade Reggie composed and how 11th-grade Reggie composes and he did everything. Before it was just the themes, and he stuck 8 minutes of development in it. Christopher says it sounds like a combination of Liszt, Keith Jarrett and Chopin. Stephan says the imperfections are also perfect. It's so human, so impassioned. I don't even want to share it anymore. If it may just possibly be all every total much that could be him, he did everything. There is an actual development with the crazy every-measure modulation and diminution and fragmentation and he doesn't present the themes in full, in the order they go in, the order I've heard them in for the last three years until the end, and I could die now, but I wouldn't get the other two movements. That's okay. I need to learn to listen to this one without weeping and sobbing like a little child.
I've been to paradise and it's not bad
I've had the best time ever
I'd regret not having more, but
I don't think I could get much happier
When finally enough of them showed up, we traded crazy silly music clips, including the peppy insanity that is Romanian boy band, and the rangy insanity that is dutchdivas.org. And then drooled at the library, listened to the Randall Thompson Alleluia (I'd sung it that morning at investiture, and they needed to hear it) at Jones, and forgot my keys when we went back to the house and out to eat (yay Chinese buffet with enchiladas). Luckily the ticket counter at Stude recognized me from the night before and let me buy six student tickets with no id. They needed to hear that concert. Rachleff turned around after the first four bars of the Vaughan Williams to chide a really loud cougher and started the piece over, and then a cell phone rang twice, in the key. But then the concert went on, and was so perfect and the pieces were so good, and the encore again... It was inspiring.
So when we went back to the house, we were inspired. Bryce played me Erlkoenig to sing, and then the rest of us improvised. I have tapes. We could so be a rock band as well as the uncertain outcome of improvising for several hours. On the roof, with two cellos, an accordion, Einstein-on-the-beach-style counting, singing, Rumi poetry set to call/response Russian Vespers, screeching, and fire on the roof. With the moon. Which is, according to Andrew, pentatonic. Till 1 in the morning. It's a bird, it's a plane, no! It's classical improv! I called us off at 1 and we went downstairs (or ladder) and listened to fun stuff and went out to the garage apartment and watched Led Zeppelin DVDs until 4. It's amazing the kind of feedback you can get on them from people who both know something about music and admire the simplicity and straightforwardness of rock. And want a band. Yes.
Then we went back into the house and slept. You're right. It was not cold.
I woke up to the tune of Andrew's discovery of the flute and the trumpet. That was interesting. And lying there talking about it with nowhere urgent to go, no agenda, is one of the nicest feelings I've ever had. Once again, after more cheesecake, we played the Alexander game and improvised a bit once Rainey came, though Andrew left before we got anything good. But once we did, man. More Rumi Vespers, though more like dramatic readings and responses this time. A nicely compact-themed bit of 3 3 2 improv, some more piratey bits... Some of the riffs we came up with were worthy of a rock song. I'll see what I can do. We have tapes.
Once it was time, we went to the modern music concert, at which was played an incredibly virtuosic array of piano pieces. Cage, Glass, Ligeti, Ginastera, Corigliano, Liebermann (the Gargoyles!), a jazz standard, and a world premiere of a Noarian piece (he wrote it in tribute to Avalon). I give up any pianistic ambition I ever had, which is saying something. Augh. And then the wrench of separation, and I listened to the 11 minutes of the maddes, saddest thing ever.
I've heard the piece develop over the three years I've known him, and until recently it was just three motives and a couple of transitional scales. Avalon had been trying to get him to do more with the motives than just repeat them, and I listened to this recording and cried for half an hour. he tried to remember a lot of things when he was composing it, including what Avalon had said about developing melodies and which parts I liked and how 9th-grade Reggie composed and how 11th-grade Reggie composes and he did everything. Before it was just the themes, and he stuck 8 minutes of development in it. Christopher says it sounds like a combination of Liszt, Keith Jarrett and Chopin. Stephan says the imperfections are also perfect. It's so human, so impassioned. I don't even want to share it anymore. If it may just possibly be all every total much that could be him, he did everything. There is an actual development with the crazy every-measure modulation and diminution and fragmentation and he doesn't present the themes in full, in the order they go in, the order I've heard them in for the last three years until the end, and I could die now, but I wouldn't get the other two movements. That's okay. I need to learn to listen to this one without weeping and sobbing like a little child.
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