Voice recordings from a small performance in Italy, early in 2020 -- Homages to/from George Maciunas (1931-1978).
Philip Corner's piano meditative playthroughs of Couperin's The Mysterious Barricades (1717), from 1989 and 1992. These two elements (voice and piano) superimposed by Sean McCann, edited during the first month of the pandemic. Manic exaltation, distorted harmony things. Album cover is a few PC scores soaked in olive oil and held in-front of the sun through my kitchen window. Booklet features passionate writings on the Couperin piece and its meaning by Corner.
Philip wrote a new reflection for this LP edition, "The Mesure of the Mystery". This album is built from the finest ingredients: beautiful piano with stomach-clenching voice stretches.
Edition of 250; 12-page pamphlet of scores and an essay by Corner
Philip Corner (b. New York, 1933) is an American composer, theorist, visual artist and a founder of the Fluxus art movement.
An early participant in pre-Fluxus activities since 1961, he was a resident composer and musician with the Judson Dance Theatre from 1962 to 1964 and later with the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, for whose dance company he served as musician. He co-founded the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble, Sounds Out of Silent Spaces, and Gamelan Son of Lion (still active today).
Many of his scores are open-ended, some employ standard notation, whereas others are graphic scores, text scores, etc. His music also frequently explores unintentional sound, chance activities, minimalism, and non-Western instruments and tuning systems. Contact with artists in other media, especially dance and the visual arts, as well as a long-standing interest in Eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism and study of the music of composers from the Baroque and Pre-Baroque eras, has likewise impacted his music.
He divides his work into five distinct periods, each reflective of his attitudes and interests at the time:
1. Culture 1950s
2. The World 1960s and 1970s
3. Mind 1970s and 1980s
4. Body 1980s and 1990s
5. Spirit; Soul, 1999 – present
