09.30.08

A Philosopher/Musician

Posted in Musicalia Miscellanea at 8:39 pm by Miracle ♪♫

There is only one predominant question on my mind right now: Why haven’t I heard of this man before?! Gavin Bryars is deep and his music is penetrating. (Yes. Gavin Bryars. Why, who did you think it was? hehe =P)When a Multiply contact shared Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, I was seized by such an abysmal emotion that I myself could not comprehend.Thus began my cyber quest for this intense composer.So far, I have not come across anything about his religion, but I can only surmise that he is a Christian.

First stop, ever-faithful Wikipedia. Richard Gavin Bryars was born on January 16, 1943 and is an English composer and contra bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism, but as Michael Ondaatje (author of The English Patient) observed, “The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle…with a third ear maybe.”

I am currently listening to his Cello Concerto Farewell to Philosophy on Imeem and it is haunting.Naturally, the title aroused my curiosity and according to Gavin Bryars, “The subtitle to the work, for example, combines the subtitles of two idiosyncratic Haydn symphonies and I allude to them in different ways but chiefly through orchestration: for The Philosopher (surprise, surprise) by including a section in the concerto where the orchestration resembles that of the symphony’s first movement (pairs of English and French horns, muted violins and unmuted lower strings); for The Farewell, by the progressive reduction in the orchestration towards the end. Indeed, apart from the orchestral tutti in the last few bars, the last pages of the score are virtually for string quartet. The subtitle also refers to my own background as a philosophy graduate…”(Further surprise. Another one of them without my prior knowledge.)

As if those two compositions aren’t enough to overwhelm me, his discography includes, Nothing like the Sun - 8 Shakespeare sonnets for soprano, tenor, speaking voice, 8 instruments, North Shore for viola and piano, andThree Elegies for Nine Clarinets, The Creation Hymn, And So Ended Kant’s Travelling in This World for unaccompanied voices, Incipit Vita Nova for solo alto, violin, viola, and cello, among other interesting titles that I am hankering to listen to.

It’s sad how no one speaks much of him.His music is worth contemplating over and absolutely worth experiencing.

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