I set out to find companion pieces for one of my all time favorite works, Luciano Berio’s Points on a Curve to Find. Listening to this work gives me the same feeling I had drinking in Eye Spy books as a kid. There’s always something small and curious happening. Berio explains the piece this way, “ … the piano part alone … can be heard as a curve … on which the other instruments position themselves to reveal and interpret their harmonic characteristics – like a template or drawing, where one adds more lines at various points – they change the sense while also illuminating other latent aspects.”

As I searched for more works for this playlist I realized that a) far fewer composers have works titled “Circles” than I originally assumed and b) the resulting mood of this playlist was going to be far more somber and serious than I originally wanted. But the good news is I found some new-to-me composers I’m going to keep listening to and I hope the same happens for you.

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1. Circles by Bryce Dessner performed by the Takács Quartet and Julien Labro. Album: Takács Assad Labro . I’ll be honest, I’ve never listened to The National (Bryce Dessner is a member). But I do like this work and will check out more of his chamber and orchestral catalogue in the weeks to come. The Takács Quartet is one of the most well known and prolific string quartets on the planet. This album is their most recent and it should go without saying that I’m always blown away. Read more about how this album came together here.
2. 2 by 2 by Paul Lansky. Album: Music Box (vol. 9). I remember the first time I heard a Paul Lansky work – it was in undergrad and Todd Meehan’s studio performed Threads. It was so delicate. Even the loud parts of the piece weren’t loud in the way a percussion ensemble is typically loud. This piece, 2 by 2, feels the same way. The entire album is electronic music. From the liner notes, “For the past several years I’ve been in a reactive phase when it comes to making electronic music. Rather than exploring ‘new sonic realms’ or looking for ‘new ways of hearing the world’ I’ve been turning to the computer for more old-fashioned tasks, like experimenting with a chord progression or trying my hand at rhythm tracks. The pieces on this CD are some of the fruits of these efforts.” Note this track has been switch to PassaKaglia on the Mixider playlist.
3. Points on a Curve to Find by Luciano Berio performed by Ensemble InterContemporain. Album: Corale / Chemins II & IV / Ritorno Degli Snovidenia / Points On The Curve To Find. Berio is the composer that immediately got me interested in new music. The first work I heard of his was the 3rd movement of his Sinfonia. This movement heavily “samples” Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and spoken quotes (sometimes incomplete or changed mid thought) – its by no means a found sound work, but I would consider it to be in the same vein but for die-hard orchestra fans.
4. Piece in the Shape of a Square by Philip Glass performed by Claire Chase. Alum: Density. Claire Chase is a flute player and badass, and I will let her explain how the piece is performed here. I unfortunately could not find a video of her performing, but the video below shows how this is very literally, a Piece in the Shape of a Square.
5. Rube Goldberg Variations: II Stravinsky Fountain by Dmitri Tymoczko performed by the Atlantic Brass Quintet. Album: Rube Goldberg Variations. This was the type of music I expected to find when I was looking for “Geometric” pieces. Works with sharp angles and interlocking pieces. But I guess that is to be expected from a composer and music theorist who wrote a book titled A Geometry of Music.
6. The Source of All Things by Andrew Martin Smith. Album: ambiance. I’ll be honest, I could not find anything about this piece, but I thought it worked well with the playlist. The record company, Beauport Classical, “is first and foremost dedicated to helping composers and performers of contemporary music to be heard by a wider audience. In keeping with our mission, the Collaboration Series is a collaborative project of composers, performers, graphic designers and other industry professionals.”
7. Line by Line by Dai Fujikura performed by Viktoria Mullova. Album: Diamond Dust. About this piece from the composer, “Line by Line is a piece which sounds as if there are 2 violins playing at the same time, with their lines intertwining with each other. The end of the piece I changed many times, and the final version was decided at the Viktoria’s house where we were trying several options. After Viktoria played one of them we looked at each other and said, “That’s it!” I love this kind of moment when working with musicians.” Read a full album review here.
8. A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley. Album: A Rainbow in Curved Air. Most musicians know Terry Riley from his groundbreaking work In C. And that’s also the first work of his I heard (I think it was actually at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival in 2011). In C was the first work performed on the very first Oh My Ears concert in Phoenix, in 2014. I’ve performed this work at least 10 times and its new and different with every iteration. I have to admit I didn’t start listening to his caelouge until after I saw him in concert at the MIM about five years ago. If you are listening for the first time, hope you enjoy A Rainbow in Curved Air as much I as I am on the 30th+ listen.