Some beautiful sounds in there, chords of lovely color and voicing and finely balanced dissonance—a good ear at work–but the composer seems content with the sounds themselves rather than how they’re employed. Repetition and undulation have their place and can used productively towards a greater end. Here they sounded like the ends themselves, their eventual tedium leavened finally by the bowed vibes, itself a pretty sound too casually self-content.
As a whole, I am aware of exquisite sound and aural beauty, but were that these were employed in the service of a deeper music beyond mere sound. Subsequent listenings might reveal subtleties of instrumentation and harmony, but there seemed little more going on to reward the listener.
I say this constructively, for the composer has such a splendid ear that I’d like to hear it applied to a piece of greater ambition and substance. I shall seek out other works and thank you for the helpful pointer.
i really think you’ve missed the point in this piece, John. Those sounds that you describe as being ends in themselves (while highly beautiful in their own right), are the exact opposite, the basis for a fascinating larger-scale flexing of tension in which everything feels connected while at the same time allowing enormous freedom and fluidity of movement. It sounds like you’re listening in quite a superficial, moment-by-moment way; if you try listening more broadly, you might hear how the longer-term push and pull of the work’s elements goes way beyond the sounds themselves.
I didn’t listen superficially, and I appreciate the longer-form elements you describe, but apparently you found more musical meaning in those elements than I.
[…] simple beauty. The same could be said for Naomi Pinnock‘s The Field is Woven, a piece that, as i’ve written previously, articulates a remarkably palpable sense of drama in its careful juxtaposition of chords (bringing […]
Some beautiful sounds in there, chords of lovely color and voicing and finely balanced dissonance—a good ear at work–but the composer seems content with the sounds themselves rather than how they’re employed. Repetition and undulation have their place and can used productively towards a greater end. Here they sounded like the ends themselves, their eventual tedium leavened finally by the bowed vibes, itself a pretty sound too casually self-content.
As a whole, I am aware of exquisite sound and aural beauty, but were that these were employed in the service of a deeper music beyond mere sound. Subsequent listenings might reveal subtleties of instrumentation and harmony, but there seemed little more going on to reward the listener.
I say this constructively, for the composer has such a splendid ear that I’d like to hear it applied to a piece of greater ambition and substance. I shall seek out other works and thank you for the helpful pointer.
i really think you’ve missed the point in this piece, John. Those sounds that you describe as being ends in themselves (while highly beautiful in their own right), are the exact opposite, the basis for a fascinating larger-scale flexing of tension in which everything feels connected while at the same time allowing enormous freedom and fluidity of movement. It sounds like you’re listening in quite a superficial, moment-by-moment way; if you try listening more broadly, you might hear how the longer-term push and pull of the work’s elements goes way beyond the sounds themselves.
I didn’t listen superficially, and I appreciate the longer-form elements you describe, but apparently you found more musical meaning in those elements than I.
[…] simple beauty. The same could be said for Naomi Pinnock‘s The Field is Woven, a piece that, as i’ve written previously, articulates a remarkably palpable sense of drama in its careful juxtaposition of chords (bringing […]