The Sibelian Conspiracy

Extatisk reträtt

2012-04-20T11:01:00.000Z

This is a quick, first and awful sounding recording, only for demo purposes, with the Swedish lyrics I (Maria) have written to the song "Ecstatic Regret" (composed 2004 by Michael W Morse, SOCAN. Music used with permission).

Original sheet music found at http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/mmorse

See also the version with English lyrics by Samir Fejzic, released on his album "Romantic Soul".
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/samirfejzicband2

LYRICS

(vers 1) Mörka månen lyser röd. Du är sårad, jag vill dö. Svarta segel närmar sig. Hör du mig?

(vers 2) Varför skiljas? Varför dö? Ingen människa är en ö. Ingen framtid för oss två? Klockan slår!

(refräng A-del) Som i extas, jag vacklar till, och väntar på signal med gråten i halsen. Ah… Min dröm gick i kras, en bubbla sprack. Här är slutet, vår final, den allra sista valsen.

(refräng B-del) Utan liv finns ingen tid och inget lyckorus kvar. Fast jag vill inte tro att känslor dör så snart. Nej, oh nej!

(Swedish lyrics copyright © 2012 Maria Ljungdahl STIM.)

-----

(Edited from google translate into English!)

Ecstatic retreat (Swedish text to MWM's song "Ecstatic regret")

(verse 1) The dark moon is glowing red. You are hurt, I want to die. Black sails are approaching. Can you hear me?

(verse 2) Why divorce? Why die? No man is an island. No future for us two? The clock strikes!

(chorus part A) As if in ecstasy, I stagger, waiting for a signal, on the verge of tears. Ah ... My dream was shattered, a bubble burst. Here is the end, our finale, the very last waltz.

(chorus B part) Without life, no time and no euphoria left. Though I will not believe that feelings die so soon. No, oh no!

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libretto - the start of the Marina Scene from Helissa, Queen of California

2012-01-15T19:30:00.004Z

ACT I SCENE 2

AT THE MARINA. QUEEN HELISSA, MELODY, OTHER COURT MEMBERS AND ASSORTED TOWN PEOPLE ARE DOING MORNING EXERCISES, MEDITATION AND YOGA AT THE BEACH, WHEN A SHIP ARRIVES.

(singing to the melody ”The Ship Arrives”)

SAILOR: This morning as the sun was rising o’er the ocean we arrived.
ALL: Arrived! Arrived!
SAILOR: This morning when the sun is shining o’er the ship and in our eyes. We’ll tell you of our lives, of souls and wolves and wives. Say, do you also fear to lose your freedom, reason, taste and love?
ALL: And love? And love?

SAILOR: This morning as the sun is rising o’er a foreign land in peace.
ALL: In peace! In peace!
SAILOR: This morning when the sun is shining o’er the hills and roofs and trees. In Darwin we believe, and free speech is our creed. Our captain and the boys are coming forward here to say ”Ahoy”!
ALL: Ahoy! Ahoy!

(recitative)
MISS MELODY: My God! Who are these people, landing here at such an early hour? What a sorry ship! What strange clothes and shoes! The sailors! The captain! The tall woman at his side! The white dwarf! They look like Europeans, poor souls…

(spoken dialogue)
CAPTAIN YUSTA: Ahoy! Hallo! Hey-hey! Ya commer fron at fremmonde land. Ya tror på leevat ock Darwin! Vee comm uver havat, ock seigledde fron Skandinavien till Panama fur enn monadd senn. Vee viller stanna ee Los Angeles Santa Monica men cunnde inte fo platts ee marinan. Hjelp oss! Air detta San Fransisko? Vem regerar stadun? Har nee demokrati? Har nee sossialfursaekringer?
MISS MELODY: Hello, strangers! Greetings! You have entered the city where Helissa the Wise and Wonderful is the Queen President of All People! I am her friend and servant. You can call me Miss Melody.
QUEEN HELISSA: Welcome in the name of peace, dolphins and oranges! We speak English if you don’t mind.

(recitative)
YUSTA: Sorry! I will translate for you now. Greetings to Queen Helissa, Miss Melody and all people! My name is Captain Yusta. I am the owner of this ship here. This is Jeanette, my assistant. Here is Blondel, a friend and musician from Paris. My crew is from England: Will, Dill and Jill. We sailed from Scandinavia a month ago, through Panama, and were not allowed to stay in Los Angeles. Please help us! We are good people. We believe in Darwin, in life, in peace, and freedom of speech. Thank you.

(I think I'm writing an opera, but I'm not sure yet)

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here, now

2011-09-30T20:27:00.001Z

Since SibeliusMusic was closed today, and redirects to ScoreExchange the composer forum they hosted is also down.

If you are looking for people you once found on SibMus chat page, or want to discuss something about your experience as a self-publisher of compositions and user of Sibelius, welcome to the open unoffical user forum group on Facebook

There are a couple of other places also, where friends from SibMus meet. Follow the links in the earlier post about it.

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digital sheet music online and offline in the future

2011-06-19T22:49:00.001Z

Got an email some days ago from the people at SibeliusMusic, and it seems the site will be removed within a couple of months:

"SibeliusMusic.com will continue to operate during the transition period, but will be ramping down in the following stages:

- Paid-for scores will no longer be purchasable from 31 July
- Free scores will be available to consumers for another two months, until 30 September
- The final payments to self-publishers for music sold on SibeliusMusic.com will occur on or before the end of September
- On 1 October, SibeliusMusic.com be shut down, and the homepage will redirect to ScoreExchange.com.

Any user data, including scores, programme notes, and account details, that has not been migrated to ScoreExchange.com by the time SibeliusMusic.com is finally closed will be deleted 30 days thereafter (in accordance with data protection laws)."

I have already moved my scores to the alternative new web site that they recommended, ScoreExchange, and my music is found at this page

It seems they want to preserve the self-publisher catalogue of scores from the SibeliusMusic era and the user base of sellers and buyers, but redirect it to two new enterprises.

The business idea of SibeliusMusic, to sell printouts of digital sheet music files ("scores" made in Sibelius notation but presented in encrypted Scorch format for web browser viewing/playing/printing) will go to a company called ScoreExchange, which is not related to the Avid group, but to ADAP Solutions, a company where former SibeliusMusic staff and developers work.

An increasingly common use of digital sheet music is to skip the print to paper step and read the music directly on the computer screen, a dedicated type of gadget in the form of a electronic music stand with a screen, or also on a display direct on a musical instrument (a keyboard, usually). Now Avid/Sibelius has developed an application for Apple Ipad, that can show Sibelius files in Scorch format. This makes it possibly to sell musical scores - both from the huge catalogues of sheet music available through commercial music publishers and for the also large catalogue of self-published music - through Itunes, but you need to purchase the Scorch app first and view the music store through it, I think. I haven't tested it, because I don't have an ipad to try it on.

Since the lively forum - the "chat page" - at SibeliusMusic also will be gone in the near future, users have been discussing if they are interested in starting their own forum or connection hub somewhere, and up to now, these possible alternatives have been noted this far:

this is an old Facebook group for discussions and connections between Sibelius users.

here is the official Avid Scorch forum for tech support and discussions about the ipad experience.

the good tech support forum for the main product Sibelius will still be found at the Help Center at Sibelius.com

there is also the unofficial yahoo group for Sibelius users, with tech support and discussions - sibelius-list

the product manager at Sibelius, Daniel Spreadbury, publishes a blog - Sibelius Blog

there is since a couple of years a forum with several Sibelius users in it, called Sons of Sibelius (or SOS)

there was a once active but now abandoned Yahoo group with several Sibelius users in it - 21st century composers (I can't log in to it and see the member list, because I think I used an old yahoo identity for it, and have perhaps lost the details for it)

there is a new forum called SibeliusComposers

there is a new Wordpress blog page set up by Steve for discussions and links - Composers of Sibelius

Please comment here - or at the other places mentioned - if you have any ideas or advice!

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a new recording (video) of the Scarborough Fair / Every Rose arrangement

2011-06-19T10:39:00.000Z

You can purchase the sheet music as print outs from this page and/or this page at ScoreExchange.com

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new fan video

2011-04-07T01:40:00.011Z

La Nuit - Gilles Vigneault
preview 30 sec mp3

itunes download page & preview (the album "Un jour je ferai mon grand cerf-volant" from 1983)

Spotify - La Nuit - Gilles Vigneault

fan video

Lyrics and chords

(first version: after help from Pat)
(edit 1: after help from Darren)
(edit 2: after help from Gunnar)
(edit 3: after help from Pierre)
(edit 4: Swedish version and chords by Gunnar)

La Nuit

Intro: Eb / Eb/D / Cm / Bb7 Ab/C Bb7/D /

Eb Eb/D Cm Eb/Bb
Comme un trappeur, qui retrouve le nord

Cm B5+ Eb/Bb Ab
comme un pêcheur, qui retrouve le port

1) Fm Cm Fm G Cm
2) Cm B5+ Eb/Bb Am7-5
../. ainsi je suis, lorsque la nuit

1)Ab Fm Dm7-5 G
2)Ab Eb/Bb Bb Eb
lève la voile et m'invite à son bord ./.

Comme le chien qui redevient le loup,
Comme le roi qui redevient le fou,
../. ainsi je suis, lorsque la nuit
envoie le vent me donner rendez-vous ./.

Comme un torrent, qui retrouve son cours,
comme un amant qui retrouve l'amour
../. ainsi je suis, lorsque la nuit
colle sa joue à l'épaule du jour ./.

Comme évadé des prisons du pareil
Comme un fuyard des filets du soleil
ainsi je suis, lorsque la nuit
me fait renaître à l'envèrs du sommeil,
ainsi je suis, lorsque la nuit
mouvre ses bras, sans donner de conseil.

The Night

Like a trapper, who finds the North
like a fisherman who finds the port
. /. so I am, when the night
lifts the sail (veil) and invites me on board (to her shore). /.

Like the dog becomes the wolf again
like the king, who becomes the fool again
. /. so I am, when the night
sends the wind to give me an appointment. /.

Like a stream, that finds its course
like a lover, who finds love
. /. so I am, when the night
leans her cheek on the shoulder of the day. /.

Like an escape from a prison of a kind,
like a fugitive from the nets of the sun
so I am, and in the night
I'll be reborn on the other side of sleep,
so I am, when the night
moves her arms, without sharing her advice.

Natten
(svensk tolkning av Gunnar Borén)

Som en jägare som hittar sitt nord
som en fiskare som kommer tillbaka till sin hamn
. /. sådan är jag, när natten
lyfter sin slöja och bjuder mig till sitt sköte. /.

Som hunden, som blir som en varg
som kungen, som blir som en narr
. /. sådan är jag, när natten
skickar vinden med bud om ett möte. /.

Som ett vatten som hittar tillbaka till sitt drag
som en älskare, som hittar tillbaka till sin kärlek
. /. sådan är jag, när natten
trycker sin kind mot gryningenss skuldra. /.

Som kommen från fängelsen av likt,
som en flyende från solens katter
sådan är jag, när natten
får mig att återfödas i dvalans skimmer.
sådan är jag, när natten
rör sina armar utan att ge något råd.

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music by Samir Fejzic, Michael Morse, T. Monk, folk and jazz standards

2011-03-27T10:38:00.003Z

Recommmendation!

A couple of days ago I purchased and downloaded some albums by fellow SibeliusMusic composer Samir Fejzic

where he plays his own compositions and arrangements of folk music and jazz standards (including a tune by Michael Morse). I thought I should post some links to the band, to give you all a chance to find out what Samir Fejzic Band (and the vocalists he collaborates with) sounds like. It's jazz-folk-classical music from Sarajevo, and with influences from many places and people of our world.

The recordings are available from CDBaby and/or as downloads from Emusic, iTunes and CDBaby (the oldest album is also found as streaming audio from other online music services)

CD's/albums:

Jazz standards album "Vintage" with Karolina Ollinen (Swedish singer) and Samir Fejzic (piano)
CDBaby and
iTunes

"Bosnian Songs for voice and trio" album (with vocalist Ines Kazic)
at CDBaby and
Emusic

"Romantic Soul" album (with vocalist Ines Kazic)
at CDBaby and
Emusic

videos at Youtube

example of videos:

"Getme, getme, gel" from album "Romantic Soul"

with Ines Kazic and Samir Fejzic band (from cd "Bosnian Songs")
Bogota sam, imam svega (from a cd promotion concert)

Telal vice (poor sound quality, older concert version)

Exemple tracks from all 3 albums are on Myspace

Review of "Romantic Soul" (from CD Baby):

Exciting, exotic and maybe sometimes ecstatic music of a very contemporary kind of world-folk-classical-jazz-fusion that is pleasant and easy to listen to, but never dull. There are constant rhythmic activity and new melodic surprises in the soundscape these players create. It's a bit strange, though, for ears used to accept the American "dialect" of vocalese and scat singing everywhere in vocal jazz, to hear that these musicians seem to prefer singing on the (solfège inspired?) syllables "tee-rah, tee-rah". You certainly learn some new things you didn't understand before about music and people, if you listen to this album, so I recommend purchasing and downloading it!

If you purchased the album as a download, as is the only option here, you will have to contact the band leader Samir Fejzic to get more info about the music and the musicians, or hope that he will post the whole text of the cd album notes on this page instead of the short version of the presentation that is visible on this page now!

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music video for Tim Posgate Hornband

2011-03-12T10:35:00.000Z

Video by Maritune Art & Music (2011, Maria Ljungdahl, Sweden) for the composition "Spike's New Altitude" by Tim Posgate (2009, SOCAN, Canada). The music is from the album "Banjo Hockey" (Black Hen Music / Guildwood Records 2009) by Tim Posgate Hornband featuring Howard Johnson. see also www.guildwoodrecords.com

Musicians: Lina Allemano (trumpet), Howard Johnson (tuba), Jean Martin (percussion), Julie Martin (percussion), Quinsin Nachoff (clarinet), Tim Posgate (guitar)

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Maritune page at SoundClick

2011-01-31T20:40:00.000Z

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Winter by Patrick Ross-Ross

2010-11-30T15:35:00.000Z

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ross-Ross

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The Age of Steam by Patrick Ross-Ross

2010-11-30T14:30:00.000Z

copyright © 2010 Patrick Ross-Ross

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fyr utanför Sandhamn

2010-11-03T00:04:00.001Z

(I am thinking about writing a couple of folk tunes with titles taken from interesting places in the Stockholm Archipelago - this is one of the first of them)

Almagrundet

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The Seventh

2010-08-11T21:40:00.000Z

The Seventh Elegy (from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke)

Appeals no more; appeals aren't the nature of adult calls.

Your voice could produce the pure bird sounds --

what he sings when the season -- the rising -- is lifting him, almost forgetting

that he is also a worried creature and not just a solitary heart,

which is thrown far into the clear skies of an intimate heaven. Like him, yet,

you appeal all the same, and woo --, that, still unnoticed,

a female friend became aware of you, and silently, a response from within

slowly was woken and through her listening warmed, --

your emboldened ardor her smouldering feelings.

O, spring would get it --, there is not a village,

that does not carry the tone of this message. First, that

uncertain intonation, which, with increasing silence,

a pure, confident day will besiege wide and far.

Then, stepping onwards and upwards, shouts of stairs, approaching what

seems to be a temple in some imagined future --; then trills, fountains,

that give themselves away, to the promised fall

of the playing jet.... And before them all, summer.

Not just all the mornings of summer --, or only

how they change themselves into midday, beaming of beginnings.

Not just the days, who are smiling around the flowers, and higher up,

among the topiary trees, seem strong and mighty.

Not the devotion of such deciduous or evergreen powers,

not the highways, or just the meadows at dusk,

not, after a late afternoon's thunder, that breathing purity,

not the approaching sleep and a notion of something, at dusk...

but also the nights! Also the high nights of summer,

also the stars, the stars of an earthly night.

O, once deceased and knowing them eternally,

all the stars: because how, how, how can you forget them!

See, I called my beloved. But not just she alone

came... There came from fragile, weakened tombs

young women, risen... Because, how can I mute it,

how, my thus resounding call? The sunken still are

seeking open air forever. -- Hear, children: that, which once

moved some of us to tears, might come to many more.

Do not believe, that fate is more than clouds formed in your childhood;

how often you overtook the beloved, breathing out,

breathing, after the joyful round, into the open and free.

Being here is wonderful. You knew this, maidens, even you,

who seemingly gave it up, fell down --, you, in the most cursed

alleys and corners, fed, and fading in garbage.

For every being there is an hour, though perhaps not even

a full hour, an immeasurably short period of history, caught

between two moments --, when it is a being

and has life. Everything. Has veins full of being.

However, so easy left behind, what laughing neighbour

refuses to envy us or recognize. In sight, raised up,

would we like it, though our most visible happiness will

materialize before us, first, when we transform it within.

Nowhere, my love, is any world created, like within. Our

lives are lost and spent in transformation. Always shrinking,

the external soon ceases to exist. Where once a rugged house stood,

mental images are breaking forth, across conceptual borders, though

as if they were still based entirely in a brain.

And the zeitgeist is creating vast areas of power stations, formless

like the high energy, which it draws from everyone and all.

The zeitgeist knows no sacred ground. This abundance, of the heart,

we harbour in more secret spaces. Yes, where still a little is left of it,

something once worshipped, kneeled before and served --,

this temple, as it is, already is moving into hiding.

Many are unable to notice, and without the advantage,

that they may build it within, now, with pillars and statues, expanding!

Every obscure revolution of the world brings such poor unconnected beings,

those not belonging to earlier stages, and not yet held by future.

For even the next stage is too far away for a human. Us should

this not confuse; it strengthens in us the ability to preserve

a still recognizable character. -- This one stood among humans, once,

took the stand for destiny, within the denying, in the middle of

Destination Unknown he stood, like a being, and he bent

stars to him from the secured heavens. Angel,

to you I now present it, here! in your view,

it stands as saved at last, now upright takes its place.

Columns, pylons, the Sphinx, the ambitious upraising of it,

grey through this city's decay or polluted from afar, this cathedral.

Was it not a miracle? O, astonishment, angel, over our being,

over us, o tremendous power, so tell it, that we were able to do it, my breath

cannot spread the rumour enough. Thus we have not, in spite of it all,

neglected the premises, these warranting rooms, these

our premises. (How frightfully vast they must be,

when millennia upon millennia of fluent feelings have not flooded them yet.)

But one tower was tall, surely it was? O, angel, so it was, --

tall, even compared to you? Chartres was great --, and music

reached even higher and exceeded our heights. However, even

just a lover -- o, alone at the nightly window....

reaching your knee, did she not --?

Think not, that I am appealing.

Angel, and if I should do it! You would not come. For my

call is always based on departure; against such powerful

currents you cannot advance. Like an outstretched arm

is my call. And the hand, held open

to catch from above,

remains in your presence

an open sign, as warning and defence,

uncatchable one, high above.

(work in progress translation from German to English by Maria Ljungdahl, Sweden, 4-6 juli 2010)

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Translation in progress

2010-07-06T01:08:00.002Z

(work in progress - will be updated as new lines are added to the translation)

The Third Elegy, from The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke:

One thing is, to hail your love. Quite another, alas,

to bail out every living river deity of the blood.

The one she knows from a distance, her young man, what does he know

himself about the Lord of Desire, who often through lonely hours,

before maiden became mistress, and as if the girl did not exist,

o, dripping with God knows what, raised the idol,

calling up the night for God knows how long, to uproar.

O, the inherent Neptune, o his gruesome trident.

O, the dark wind of his bosom through the winding Triton.

Hark, as the night is sliding down and turning. Is it true,

stars, that your primordial attraction towards light

has led to his desire to be in the beloved's sight? Does he not

perceive the reason for this inner night, and sees

the pure truth of her face, in this milky flood of galactic purity?

It was not for you, alas, and not his mother, that

his eyebrows rose and bent in bows of expectation.

Not with you, his tender darling, not with you,

bowed his lips then to more fertile prayer. Do

you really think, it was your light steps forward now

that shook his soul, you, who walk like early breeze?

Sure, you scared his heart; much older heartaches

scared him through and through, just by your touch.

And summon him... you cannot call him back from such obscure community.

Freely he wants to come, breaks out; relieved gets used to stay

inside your secret heart and brings himself, begins himself.

Then, did he begin himself?

Mother, _you_ could make him tiny, you were the starter of him;

to you was he new, you bent the friendly world as an arc

over the new eyes, and sent away the strange.

Where, o where, are those days, when you appeared to simply

manage surging chaos for him behind your slender figure?

Many things were hidden to him; the nightly-suspicious bedroom --

you made it harmless, from your heart filled with safety

you added humanity in that night room of his.

Never in darkness, no, in your closer presence

you placed the night light, which shone as in friendship.

Never a creaking, that you did not smiling explain,

so it seemed you expected it, knew in advance _when_ a sound would enter...

And he listened with relief. So much power was in your

tender appearance; behind the wardrobe fled,

disguised in hanging robe, his fate, and his worrisome

future fitted easily between the moving folds of the drape.

And himself, where he lay, the relieved one, beneath sleeping lids,

melting the sweet characters of your effortless narration

into a tasting of early fall-asleep --:

appeared just so shepherded… But _inside_ him: who stopped,

who withstood the umbilical flow within?

No vigilance _then_ in the sleeper; sleeping,

but dreaming, but feverish: when he melted himself in it.

Him, the new, the shy one, how ensnared in

that propagating growth of his inner events,

already wrought into patterns, into floral chokers, into fawnish

hunting forms. How he devoted himself --. Loved.

Loved his inside, his inner wilderness,

this virgin forest within, where on fallen silent ones

his neon heart was growing. Loved. Abandoned it, went and

faced his own roots, going out from that powerful source,

where his humble first birth already was history. Loving

he stepped down into the more ancient blood, into clefts,

where the ferocious one lay, still full of forefathers. And all

terrible things knew him, twinkled, as in agreeing sense.

[...]

The Fourth Elegy

O, deciduous placentae, o when withering?

We are not one. Are not as birds of passage,

[...]

The wellknown garden,

and softly swaying: first then the dancer arrived.

Not that one. Enough! And even if his footsteps seem so light

he is disguised and will stay a journeyman (Geselle, Bürger)

who enters through the kitchen door into the apartment.

[...]

(Translation from German to English by Maria Ljungdahl, Sweden, 7 July - 11 August 2010)

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Poodle Jazz for opera singers and guitarists

2010-06-28T17:45:00.002Z

Har skrivit lite ny musik! Mytologiskt inspirerad. Passar altröst med gitarrkomp.

Maria has composed a new song, with inspiration from the Aenaid. Suitable for alto voice with guitar accompaniment.

"Helissa's Expostulation"

mp3-demo

play, listen and print out the score at SibeliusMusic (version optimized for A4 printer)

version of the score with the layout optimized for Letter Size paper, but probably good also for A4 printer

PDF-file download or view at Scribd

Helissa's Expostulation

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Through Dark Values

2010-06-24T14:05:00.001Z

Last week I revised the score for my song about Orpheus, "Through Dark Values". See:

SibeliusMusic.com - a printable Scorch version of the chart and a streaming mp3 demo without vocals

Soundcloud.com - a downloadable mp3 demo

Scribd - a downloadable PDF version of the leadsheet

Through Dark Values (bossa nova with lyrics)

--
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Test blog

2010-06-23T09:39:00.001Z

Shapes and Music

2010-03-28T16:28:00.001Z

Shapes and music

Squares - Circles - Labyrinths

Q Club, Birmingham 18th March 2010.

Yet again I find myself leaving London for Birmingham to attend a performance of music by an important twentieth century composer. In 2009 it was mainly the late music of Stravinsky, this year it was principally for a performance of Carré by Stockhausen. Other works in the concert were Allegri's Miserere, Tallis' Spem in alium and Berio's Laborintus 2. The performers were almost exclusively drawn from the university.

The performance took place in the unlikely venue of the Q Club. My only experience of Carré was a recording decades ago and so, relying solely on this distant memory, I was there with no true knowledge of the work. This live performance was a revelation.

The musicians, who were already in place when we entered the arena, were on four raised platforms in each corner for the orchestras and in the gallery were the singers. The audience could stand or sit where they chose. Being tired I sat between group 2 on my left and group 1 on my right and I elected to make this my exclusive position.

What struck me most forcibly about Carré was what a simple piece it was essentially. But simplicity, as in Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, need not mean simplistic.

Notes were passed around the groups and were made clear and audible by the combined conductors, Jonty Harrison, Vic Hoyland, Lee Differ and Scott Wilson. One added bonus to this performance was how the four groups were able to interact. The conductors all sported headphones and listened to a voice counting out the beats. This meant the sound travelled directly into the arena. Although dissonance is a word most people would associate with Stockhausen, and there was naturally enough plenty, a few moments of consonance remain clearly in my memory.

I cannot honestly say whether the performance was accurate or not, as I am ignorant of the written score or many other performances. What I can say is it was a performance that came over with true conviction. This a credit to the conductors and the performers alike.

After a longer than normal interval we regrouped in the gallery for the two a cappella works. The Miserere is not, in all honesty, a highly favoured or respected work for me. Its structure of passing the music between the chorus, chanter and group of soloists is tedious. I am not too much in sympathy with this kind of religious art. However, in the context of the concert it showed that spatial music (the three sets of performers were set well apart, the main body of the chorus in the arena, the solo tenor chanter on a higher level to the audience's right and on the other side of the gallery the four soloists) was by no means a modern concept invented by members in the Darmstadt School. In this concert the Miserere served as a simple musical history lesson.

Next the Tallis, music that is close to my heart and never fails to astound me. The (more than) 40 singers stood in an arc and the magic of the piece began. It never seems to fail to excite me from the first two notes. The memorable high G in the sopranos' music was an earlier example of Stockhausen passing a note between his groups of performers, but used in a totally different manner. Here it is not held but appears frequently. With 40 parts the music is, like the Miserere, static, but again it is static in a different manner. The joy of the polyphony in the Tallis is more readily audible to audiences than is Stockhausen's and works on a simpler level. I don't know if it was the performance or my experience of it but it seemed to finish at a faster tempo than when it began. Whichever is the case, it did not harm the overall effect.

The student musicians were joined by student actors and professional singers for a staged performance of Berio's Laborintus 2. I am not, unlike a composer friend of mine, as enamoured of Berio's work so my comments can be rejected by Berio fans.

It is a more complex piece than any of the the preceding pieces and I did not feel (as did some other members of the audience) that the staging contributed much to the music. My understanding and familiarity with the text is poor and I was not lead into the heart of the piece. Why one of the three excellent soprano soloists left her companions to dance with the narrator and subsequently left him to stand above her fellow performers like a madonna in one of those hideous baroque chapels that mar so many Italian churches is beyond me. I was probably born just a little bit too late to be truly, madly, deeply into 60's psychedelia.

Of the performers in all four works (professionals apart who produced exemplary performances) I have nothing but high praise. I spoke with Vic Hoyland who said he had to take them with him as the two more recent works were alien (I paraphrase our exchange) but come they did. The singers had to produce strange noises in the Stockhausen. Peculiar moans, groans and ululation that are a world away from the "perfect" sounds required for the Allegri and Tallis. Then in the Berio, Italianate bel canto for the small chorus of eight (they are more like a set of less prominent soloists) were required to howl and shout. Although it is always unfair to pick out some performers I must praise the soprano Chiara Lisowski (pure as the soprano soloist in the Miserere and spotted by me as having one hell of a time in Carré) the bass Richard Scott in the more functional bass role in the Miserere but at times almost losing voice control in the Berio which added so much to the performance.

My overall conclusion of the concert is that despite my more unsympathetic attitudes and responses to the Allegri and Berio (I do like Italian music, honest I do!) the concert was an education for me as a listener, some 35 years older than many of the participants, and those involved should ensure they put this performance on their CV and more especially the Stockhausen.

If this has encouraged even a small number of them to take a deeper interest in the modern and modernist music written in the twentieth century, or even come to enjoy it and love it so much as I have, then they have become more enriched.

My contemporaries at conservatoires were not as exposed as these youngsters have been. What they gave their audience on Thursday (the programme was given again on Friday 19th) can never be repaid.

As an aside, Birmingham has been shortlisted as a "City of Culture" for 2013. On this showing and the splendid Igorfest by the CBSO alone they surely must be a front runner. All power to the provinces!

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Scarborough Fair - Every Rose Grows Merry In Time

2010-03-01T20:29:00.000Z

New arrangement by MaLj of Scarborough Fair - listen, buy and print out from the publishing site SibeliusMusic.com!

Version of Scarborough Fair with a written guitar part.

The ballad "Scarborough Fair" is one of the most well-known old folk songs that got popular in our time through recordings and performances in the folk and pop scene of the 1960-1970 period.

The text in "Scarborough Fair" is closely related to other old ballads, for example, "The Elfin Knight" and "The Cambric Shirt".

The content has been explained as a list of impossible tasks that the distanced lovers ask each other to perform in order to prove their love and worthiness again. It can also be read as an exchange of subtle insults with references to their character and/or body parts. For example:

1) "Wash it in yonder dry well", meaning perhaps a person with dry eyes, not easily moved to tears,

2) One of the lovers has got a sharp tongue, a "sickle of leather",

3) "Sow some seeds from north of the dam" could mean that one of the lovers has got a snotty nose above his lips ("north of the dam").

This is not a critical edition made in accord with scholarly expertise but a contemporary interpretation made with artistic license. 'He' and 'she' is alternating in this version.

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Soundcloud

2010-02-21T22:26:00.000Z

A serious alternative to Myspace Music and other older websites for showcasing new music and bands and networking is the Germany based Soundcloud.com. The company presentation is here

It is possible to use a profile page as a public "artist page" for showing and sharing tracks (if you own the copyright to the music and recordings, naturally), but also as a private music sharing and collaboration tool, by using a part of the file upload area as a "drop box" for posting and fetching tracks.

Marias page is at soundcloud.com/maritune and you can find music by Sibelian conspiracist Rod Moulds at soundcloud.com/r-a-moulds

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100 books

2010-01-11T21:46:00.005Z

The BBC apparently believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. Please copy and paste your bolded books read, italicized books as ”want to read”, and then sum up with a head count, so to speak. What does the list say about your reading habits?

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Read and finished: 40
Have tried, but not finished: maybe 5
Want to read: 15
Don't want to read: maybe 40

EDITED:

Another version of the list! There seems to be several lists, like this is not the original "BBC list" but an internet meme, mutating...
I found two versions at Isobels Verkstad

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

UPDATE 2: Still think the real list can't look like these examples, with so many easy reads that nobody can gain status points for having read, or having faked that they read. It seems Julia Skott thinks so, too, and she has done her homework and found an older blog post that discusses the supposed BBC list, at Kristjan Wager.
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Katie Maurice

2010-01-05T01:01:00.001Z

New piano piece - Katie Maurice - by Maria Ljungdahl:

Nostalgic waltz. The melody is hopelessly unoriginal, but neither consciously plagiarized nor constructed as a sound-alike of some known model. Such things happen quite naturally, as this sort of old-fashioned waltz probably can't be written or improvised anymore without sounding like something we have already heard, many times. We know all the possible turns of the phrases in the waltz language, or can at least imagine any random but logical variation of the phonemes whenever we think of such music. The "Katie Maurice" in the title is a name borrowed from Maud Montgomery's first novel about the young Miss Shirley from Nova Scotia.

Katie Maurice - nostalgic waltz for piano by Maritune

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Jean Sibyl

2010-01-01T23:07:00.002Z

New piece of music - Jean Sibyl for piano solo. Written for the new year 2010 by Maria Ljungdahl.

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Carols and other music for the season

2009-12-10T00:16:00.000Z

Time for some last minute decisions about what to listen to, play or sing this Christmas? Here are some suggestions for music that can be listened to online and then printed as sheet music:

A Lucia song in Swedish, Ljus, som i natten lyser (SATB) or Ljus som i natten lyser (melody)

A well-known Swedish song, Nu tändas tusen juleljus

A modern translation of an old German hymn, Vintergatans vita segel (SSAB) or Vintergatans vita segel (melody)

A piano solo piece, Dancing polar bears

An instrumental tune for viola and piano, Frost

A short and simple piano tune for the New Year, New chords

An old folk song from Europe, Ulv, räv, hare (J'ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre

A Canadian jazz piece that exists in two versions with different titles, 1) The not-so-great Satan and 2) The voice of a fallen snow angel

An old carol, God rest ye merry gentlemen or alternative version

A cool lydian plaything for jazz ensemble, Lydia's waltz

A movement from a jazz suite, Symphoresis

A ballad arranged for jazz ensemble, Estella's song

A song cycle, Along the marches of the sky

A piece for string orchestra, A Christmas quarrel

Another piece for string orchestra, Danza: el que bailó con el Diablo

A prologue to an opera, The Miracles of Monsanvierge

A movement for string quartet, Solstice

A hymn, See amid the winter's snow

A carol arranged for wind quartet, Away in a manger

Another one, Ding dong merrily on high

And, God rest ye merry gentlemen

And, Jingle bells

And, O come all ye faithful

And, Once in royal David's city

And, See amid the winter's snow

And, Silent night

And, The first Noël

A prelude, Veni veni Emmanuel

A chaconne, Air de Galatee

A piece for three pianists (six hands), Heroes of mine

A carol for brass quintet, Deck the halls

A piece for orchestra, Deck the hall of the mountain king

A carol, The Serpent's sermon

A carol for french horn and piano, White Christmas

A hymn, Veni creator spiritus

A piano solo, Snowflake realms

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The Cornucopia Of Inhabited Worlds

2009-12-05T10:47:00.000Z

A new poem by Lars Gustafsson

The cornucopia of inhabited worlds

In some other worlds they have now confirmed
the Riemann prime number hypothesis

In some other worlds they are now forcing
some ancient mushrooms to confess for ages

In some other world the depths of darkness
is lit up from words cried by marvellous rocks

In many a world summer reigns
for a century, and the unfortunate ones

who were born on a winter day are
spending their lives fast asleep

suspended in light grey and
fur-lined cocoons

In some of the worlds also this poem
is written already by several poets

(Swedish original: Om de bebodda världarnas rikedom. Copyright Lars Gustafsson 2009. English translation by Maria Ljungdahl. Published with permission.)

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