Four Compositions (Wesleyan) 2013
After all that waiting and wondering, when I finally got it together to order this album from a Czech retailer, it came very quickly in the end (a much less stressful experience than I'd had the last time I ordered an album from continental Europe). Unfortunately, this time there are some issues with the actual product, as will be explained - but before we get to any of that, the question was: how many of the outstanding questions - regarding the nature of Falling River Music, and how it does or doesn't relate to DCWM - will be answered and cleared up by the physical version of this release?
For the benefit of those who can't be bothered to read the whole post, but who may nonetheless have been curious about the question - the TL;DR answer is: none of them, basically.
So, the details... well, as I've already said, the actual purchase was a little expensive (with international shipping rates and "Brexit tax" factored in) - but it was otherwise simple, quick and hassle-free: I was very happy with the service from Minority Records of Prague, who declared my order shipped the day after I placed it, responded very promptly to my message asking how long they thought it might take, and got the package to me in around a week ( - a week which included a UK bank holiday). The seller has also proved very helpful since then with continued enquiries about the state of the discs, as I will make clear.
In terms of value for money and quality of product, this set is sort of halfway between the superb Sax Qt (Lorraine) 2022 box, as detailed back in May, and the much earlier Four Improvisations (Duo) 2007 on Clean Feed (which disappointed me mightily at the time of purchase, its four discs housed in plastic wallets and with an insert consisting solely of one double-sided sheet of glossy paper): again, the four discs here are in plastic wallets - which decision may have caused its own problems - but at least there is a proper booklet, containing photos and liner notes / essays:
When I say photos, these are not of the performances, or of the players themselves - perhaps this is understandable, with a release containing music recorded ten years previously (although it does seem likely that there could have been some pictures taken of the sessions which eventually gave rise to this album) - but rather two double-page photographs, and one single-page one, showing what is presumably supposed to represent the painting process for the FRM scores...
... except that it really doesn't, since a discreet note on the back cover of the booklet - not on the back of the box itself - credits "painting" to Vladimir 518. There's nothing inherently irregular about having cover art which is not taken from one of the scores, but it does seem a bit peculiar to include photos of art which has nothing to do with them, especially when two of the three photos actually show this art being physically painted: quite tasteful, yes, and well suited to the overall tone of the box set, but how is this relevant to the music? Still, the twenty-page booklet is a nice addition, and helps to make up for the disappointment of having the actual discs in those rather tacky plastic wallets* (which don't even quite fit inside the box, as the second pic above shows). Not for the first time, an assumption has been made by a European label that anybody buying this sort of album - regardless of their individual country of origin - will be well-enough educated that they can read English, French and German as a matter of course: the three essays, By Art Lange (written in 2015), Guillaume Belhomme and Pirmin Bossart respectively, do not overlap at all - so that only a polyglot experiencer will be able to read all of the notes with full comprehension**.
What was far more of a concern, when I first opened the package - listed as Mint and sealed, and which arrived shrinkwrapped*** - was the state of the actual discs. All four of these showed quite noticeable marking on the playing surface, of a type which I cannot remember ever seeing before on factory-new CDs, in more than three decades of dealing with this format; the first three in particular looked scuffed and lightly scratched, as if they had all been rubbed against some sort of abrasive surface prior to sealing. This has proved tricky to capture on camera, but this gives an idea of it:
I brought this up with the seller, who couldn't account for it - understandably, since all copies he has in stock are shrinkwrapped and apparently factory-sealed - but then just couldn't decide what to do about it. Despite the marking being clearly visible - at least in artificial light - it does not seem to affect playback at all, so the actual recorded layer of the laminate is apparently undamaged; and although the seller offered me a replacement, this would have meant my having to pay more money again to send the package back to Prague, then wait for a replacement which could potentially be just as bad. I've never seen anything like this, as I say, but if all four discs in one box are marked in this way, why would I assume that other copies won't be? It's not as if the seller can actually check... in the end, it was only today - in taking the pictures for this post, in strong natural light - that I decided not to pursue this any further: oddly enough, in strong sunlight, the markings are barely visible at all from any angle, which is probably consistent with the fact that the CDs play without problems: any damage must be extremely superficial. (It's possible that the plastic wallets themselves are somehow responsible for this, although I can't really see how.) I may very well still contact the label directly about this, just to see what they say - but I am satisfied that the seller has done everything he can, and I shan't be sending this back. Of course, that doesn't mean that I am completely satisfied with the actual product - and that will certainly be borne in mind, assuming this new label goes on to release more albums.
***
As regards the unanswered questions - well, I've already headed this off, earlier in the post, but just to confirm: the whole thing has effectively just been a year-long wait for an anticlimax. Much is made of FRM being "the latest evolutionary stage of Braxton's lifelong conceptualization and personalization of notation" (Lange), and that sort of thing - even if FRM itself is hardly new at this point, and wasn't new in 2013 either (the term having first been used at least as long ago as 2003) - but although there is some attempt (on Lange's part) to explain what it is, at least in terms of the "spontaneously conceived, painted gesture" being the new element in the FRM scores, there is no mention whatsoever of DCWM#, and hence no attempt to clarify why this music - with its pervasive use of the interactive SuperCollider software - should not be considered as primarily DCWM rather than FRM. I have previously sifted through all the granular detail regarding opus numbers and all that, and it's clear that in principle, the primary territories here - Comps. 364f, 366e, 364e and 363a - are within the range traditionally associated with DCWM. That's if those four pieces even are to be considered as primary territories: one detail which is provided in the notes here (but which may have been mentioned already in the label's blurb at the time of release, I think) is that these four long pieces see the three players working from three different scores, and although that is not broken down for the listener, we may infer from this that a title such as Comp. 364f (+364g + 272) should probably be rendered differently, to indicate that each territory was explored by only one of the musicians. Of course, lacking any real detail on this, we can't even be at all sure about that - but it does seem likely, and that suggests that disc two's comprising only two compositions, with disc three comprising four, is probably just an error in the preparation of the tracklist rather than an accurate reflection of what was actually played in these performances. But, again... educated guesswork. I could just as easily be wrong.
So I'm back to square one, really - or whatever square that was last October - and until told otherwise, will assume as follows: the music presented in this set is essentially DCWM, utilising (mainly) scores written for that system, and in addition to this - and also to the judicious insertion of GTM scores - there are elements of FRM strategies worked into the music at certain points, or even throughout, thus creating an intensely "hybridised" super-territory##. A sonic element is often present which I have not yet been able to identify, but which could be the sound of brushstrokes in real time; this sound overlaps with the sounds of breathing, and to some extent with the clacking of keys (all of which is captured in minute detail, and all of which is folded into the overall mixture) so I keep doubting myself, but...?### With regard to the allocation of titles, it's worth remembering that the previously-mentioned (-hyperlinked) ABCD album with Chris Dahlgren does not designate any specific opus numbers to FRM, but rather lists four of its eight tracks in the format "Comp. 316 - version a [b, c, d] (with Falling River musics)". (Of course, one thing I forgot to do before writing this was consult the packaging for the 2003 album, which may shed further light on all this; pretty ironic if so, and I'll be sure to check that out before too long.) It would not be entirely out of character for B's original intentions for this system to have become garbled or confused over time, and perhaps I was barking up the wrong tree to begin with, in anticipating that any questions would be answered here at all ;-)
What remains, of course, is the music itself - which is (obviously) multilayered and gorgeous; it's a real treat to hear this kind of instrumentation on this kind of piece, which has generally featured only reeds, small brass and electric guitar - and to hear two such sympathetic musical explorers (sympathetic to the composer, and to each other: Dahinden and Kleeb are married) interacting with the maestro. It is lush and varied enough to function reasonably well as background music, but one suspects that if listeners could give these performances their undivided attention from start to finish, the effect would be extremely rewarding; I do want to try playing this with little or no ambient light sometime, although of course I will not then be able to make any notes (!). Given the doubt over the physical integrity of the discs, and the likely high price of purchase, it is a difficult set to recommend to any and all readers, but there are certainly no question marks over the quality of the actual music. "It all starts by listening", indeed^...
* Don't get me wrong, I still don't really understand how the Italian box was financially viable. Putting these things together must be a complete nightmare for the labels involved... but of course that's not my main concern as a consumer, nevertheless...
** I am lucky to be able to read two of them, I suppose. I can't read German; but I did still skate my eyes over it, hunting for anything which looked as if it might deal with the album's relationship to DCWM, for example, which I could then run through an online translator. Doesn't look to me as if there's anything in there about this.
*** Obviously, the fact of something being shrinkwrapped is not proof of anything much - certainly it does not prove that the contents have not previously been opened, used and resealed. There was nothing on the cellophane to indicate that it was definitively put on by the label, or at their instruction. It's just one of those things which one has to take on trust.
# No mention, that is, except fleetingly, as one of several examples of prior musical strategies and systems employed by the composer.
## Would this also, then, be the case for the twelve duets in the DCWM box? (I'm not going to assume that I would find the answers there, either...)
### It's also a bit of a puzzle: if this sound is that of someone painting, who is doing that, and how? There are times when it can be heard even while all three musicians are playing.
^ Lange's notes.
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