Description
Through Two More-Than-Mysterious Barricades (LP)
(Improvizations After François Couperin)
Author/Editor: Philip Corner
CONTENTS
Les Barricades Mistérieuses, the harpsichord gem by French Baroque composer François Couperin, has been a long-running source of exploration for Fluxus musician Philip Corner, who for years has used it as a jumping-off point for piano improvisations. Through Two More-Than-Mysterious Barricades comprises two very different takes on the same piece. The first dates from 1992, in collaboration with dancer Paulette Sears (who provides the “singings and screamings” of the album’s subtitle); it moves from a frenzy of abstraction to a more meditative take on Couperin’s composition with diversions and tributaries along the way. The second, from 2004, is a rougher beast: recorded with wildly over-saturated levels, the tape machine itself becomes a participant in the performance, with its heavy distortion bringing out stormclouds of overtones from Corner’s piano. Release includes Corner’s calligraphy silkscreened on Kozo rice paper and mounted onto the jacket. Through Two More-Than-Mysterious Barricades was released by Roaratorio in 2014 an edition of 318 copies; stocked by San Francisco Cinematheque on the occasion of Stan Brakhage’s Passage Through: A Ritual, presented May 26, 2024.
Label: Roaratorio
ASIN: B00QFJ6RSY
Number of discs: 1
BIO:
Philip Corner studied at Columbia University with Otto Luening and Henry Cowell, later with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire and privately with Dorothy Taubman in New York. He taught at the New Lincoln School in New York 1966–1972, the New School for Social Research 1967–1970 and Rutgers University 1972–1992, after which point he moved to Reggio Emilia, Italy with his wife, the dancer and choreographer Phoebe Neville. He has been associated with Fluxus since 1961, was a resident composer and musician with the Judson Dance Theatre 1962–1964 and later with the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. He co-founded with Malcolm Goldstein and James Tenney the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in 1963 (active until 1970), with Julie Winter Sounds Out of Silent Spaces in 1972 (active until 1979) and with Barbara Benary and Daniel Goode, Gamelan Son of Lion in 1976 (still active).