Alfred Schnittke - Strings Quartets Nos. 1-4

"More than 10 years after his death, Alfred Schnittke remains an enigma form any musicians and music lovers. Was he Russian or German? And to what musical camp did he belong? What role did his music play in the history of the 20th century? to these and similar questions, his string quartets will clearly provide at least the beginnings of answers.

 

"Schnittke’s claim to be Russian rests on an accident of history. After acceding to the throne of Russia in 1762, Catherine II, née the princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, encouraged the colonization of several Russian territories. As a result, many Germans settled on the banks of the volga. In 1924, lenin created the volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. it was abolished in 1941 by Stalin when, in the middle of the Second World War, Hitler’s troops began to invade Russia. it was in Engels, the capital of this German enclave in the USSR, southeast of Moscow, that Alfred Schnittke was born, in 1934. His mother was a Catholic of German origin. Because his father was a German Jew, his parents were exempted from the deportation ordered by Stalin. Schnittke was thus raised on Russian soil, except for the two years he spent in Vienna with his family between 1946 and 1948. 'Like my German forebears,' he told his biographer Alexander Ivashkin, 'I live in Russia. I can speak and write Russian far better than German. But I am not Russian.'

 

"Schnittke studied music in Engels; in Vienna, where he discovered Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern; and, especially, in Moscow, where he attended the Conservatory from 1953 to 1961 before teaching there for a decade. All his youth was colored by the fear spread by Stalin’s regime, and by its effects on music. The union of Soviet Composers was powerful, exercising its rigorous control over music by, for instance, accusing Shostakovich of formalism, and by giving Prokofiev good reason to regret having returned home. Schnittke, a great admirer of these two masters, also discovered Stravinsky, whose music was beginning to be played in the USSR, and deepened his knowledge of Viennese serialism and of the Polish avant-garde.

"From the beginning of the 1960s, Schnittke’s music, though relegated to the sidelines for being 'non-official' and too western by the union of Composers, was appreciated by the public, particularly his film scores, and played by the great virtuosos of his country. twenty years later his purgatory ended; he was hailed worldwide as Shostakovich’s successor and, along with Edison Denisov and Sofia Gubaidulina, as one of the pillars of the new Soviet music.

"Schnittke was very attracted by the religion and music of the Orthodox Church, and followed in Mahler’s footsteps by converting to Catholicism in 1982. 'My Jewish half gives me no peace,' he said. 'I know none of the three Jewish languages—but I look like a typical Jew.'

"In 1985, at the age of 51, Schnittke was hit by the first of a series of strokes which forced him, little by little, to slow down. Five years later, he was offered the post of professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und theater in Hamburg, where he moved, and where he died in 1998. His funeral in Moscow drew an immense crowd, come to pay homage to the greatest Russian composer of the end of the 20th century.

 

"During almost half a century, Schnittke composed more than 250 works, from opera to chamber music to film music to concertos. An often pessimistic mystic who described himself as being 'born in the wrong place,' he did not seek 'to react against a rigid system' through his music but rather 'to act as though the system just doesn't exist at all.' While drawing inspiration from the past, and exploring the many esthetic facets of his day, he forged a personal language he called polystylistic.

"Between 1966 and 1989, Schnittke composed four string quartets. (They had been preceded by two unfinished attempts.) In 1971 he added the 'Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky' to his works for string quartet, and in 1997, 'Variations'.

"He wrote the first string quartet for the Borodin Quartet, which premiered it in 1967 in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). Though he gave each of the three movements of this dodecaphonic work somewhat Baroque titles, it squarely belongs to the new ways of the West. It follows the procedures of Witold Lutoslawski, of Krzysztof Penderecki, and of the Viennese school and its heirs, such as Pierre Boulez and Luigi Nono, including a vast panophy of nuances, such as pizzicato and glissando, and of effects, such as the mute and the bow on the fingerboard or bridge.

"Right from its very expressive introduction, the first movement, Sonata, strikes the listener with an impression of the sheer inventiveness of its young (he was 32) composer. A play of subtle nuances and the endlessly refreshed sonic effects recall both the legacy of Schoenberg and the expressive chromaticism of Bartók’s last quartets. This is notable in the second section of this movement, which is dominated by a drone ornamented with trills and glissandi. the movement ends fortissimo on a tutti that employs all the 12 chromatic tones of the scale.

"With its Webernian pointillism, the second movement, Canon, continues this sonic exploration in quite a rhapsodic way. this leads into the Cadenza. this third movement, reminiscent of the great figurative flights of the Baroque toccatas, is based on a Klangfarbenmelodie (a tone color melody) dear to the Viennese school: a phrase rapidly circulates from one instrument to another to form a long, monodic ribbon. The astounding coda is interspersed with six long dramatic silences and ends up quietly resolved on a unison C, a pole apart from the mood of the opening movement.

"Fourteen years later, Schnittke returned to the string quartet genre with a work dedicated to the memory of a friend, the Soviet filmmaker Larissa Efimovna Chepitko (1938-1979). She was killed in a car crash, and Schnittke’s work expressed his revolt and affliction at such a brutal loss. It served as a required piece at the international String Quartet Competition in Évian (France), and was premiered there in 1980 by the Muir Quartet, from the USA.

"The alternation of slow and fast episodes of the four movements of this intense funerary lamentation recalls the structure of the church sonatas of the Baroque era. The first movement, a kind of canon of harmonic sound, gives way to a generous recitative of intervals sounded by the first violin. A virulent and particularly dramatic Agitato follows. From this riot of strings with, as foundations, the chord of C minor, there emerges a psalm-like theme recalling the 'Panikhida' ('Requiem') of the Russian Orthodox Church. A second more contrapuntal section, dominated by a humming flight of trills, introduces a vigorous popular theme alla Stravinsky and a rapid recapitulation of the two preceding themes. After a long silence, the coda clearly sounds the liturgical motive before drowning it in a tumultuous riot of sound.

"The third movement is a dolorous chorale in double stops, dominated by abrasive minor seconds. the cello and the viola lead this somber funeral procession. It is soon joined by a moving duo of violins, and then climbs to a climax with violently pounding chords and arabesques.

"The final Moderato begins with a muted whisper; its dynamic marking is a quadruple piano. The Slavic psalmody, the recitatives, the allusions to the professional mourners who wail at funerals, the solemn chords and the Russian themes of the previous movements: all mix together to end this somber quartet as it began.

"Schnittke composed his third string quartet in 1983. It was commissioned by the Society for New Music, Mannheim (Germany) and first performed by the Hungarian quartet Eder. In this work, more tonal than his previous quartets, Schnittke uses a procedure he was fond of and of which he gave us a foretaste in the second quartet: a kind of polystylistic collage. in its first eight measures, the first movement quotes, in succession, the Stabatmater of Roland de Lassus, the Grosse Fuge of Beethoven, and the notes D-eb-C-B or, in German nomenclature D-S-C-H, the musical signature which Dmitri Shostakovitch incorporated in several of his works (S-C-H is the equivalent of Ш, the single letter of the Cyrillic alphabet with which his family name begins). On top of these musical, contrapuntal, and harmonic borrowing, in homage to three great figures in the history of music, Schnittke superimposed his very personal language, comprised of glissandi, disintegrations, trembling trills, atonal elements, and plays of nuance.

"The Agitato,with its neoclassical sound, irresistibly evokes a wild Beethoven scherzo. The last movement, pesante, introduces a new,more rustic theme alluding equally to Mahler and to Shostakovich. Against a background of fifths, tonal scales, chromaticism, and dissonant chords, all the preceding themes are heard and then disintegrate in an astonishing variety of nuances and attacks.

"Schnittke wrote his last string quartet in 1989 in response to a commission from the prestigious Wiener Musikverein (the Viennese Musical Association). It was premiered in the same year by the Alban Berg Quartet. This work, which consists of five very contrapuntalmovements of which three are marked lento, departs in style from the two preceding quartets and marks Schnittke’s return to the esthetic of Viennese serialism.

"After an expressionistic and quite delicate lento, an energetic Allegro rich in imitation unites the lyricism of Berg with the chromaticism and spirited outbursts of Shostakovich’s quartets. A new lento, enlivened by quarter tones and homophonic passages, recreates the contemplative mood of the first movement. The brief vivace, a tormented interlude dominated by an incisive rhythm and melodies with jagged chromatic intervals, evaporates, giving way to another lento. This last movement uses, sometimes, a harmonic language rich in chromaticisms and glissandi, and at other times, spare but always expressive canonic writing. A brief and peaceful chorale evoking the music of the Renaissance is brutally interrupted before gently fading away on an A embroidered by quarter tones by the first violin. This work, steeped in despair, is one of the last that Schnittke wrote in Russia before leaving his homeland forever for Hamburg." (Irène Brisson, tr. Sean McCutcheon. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Quatuor Molinari

1.1. String Quartet No. 3: I. Andante

1.2. String Quartet No. 3: II. Agitato

1.3. String Quartet No. 3: III. Pesante

1.4. String Quartet No. 1: I. Sonata

1.5. String Quartet No. 1: II. Canon

1.6. String Quartet No. 1: III. Cadenza

1.7. String Quartet No. 2: I. Moderato

1.8. String Quartet No. 2: II. Agitato

1.9. String Quartet No. 2: III. Mesto

1.10. String Quartet No. 2: IV. Moderato

2.1. String Quartet No. 4: I. Lento

2.2. String Quartet No. 4: II. Allegro

2.3. String Quartet No. 4: III. Lento

2.4. String Quartet No. 4: IV. Vivace

2.5. String Quartet No. 4: V. Lento

2.6. Canon In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky: Lento

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Giacinto Scelsi - Integrale des Œuvres Chorales

"Shortly before his death, Giacinto Scelsi finally became famous. But the fame of the 'Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola' (1959), and the success the premieres of the great orchestral works and string quartets met with a year before his death have somewhat overshadowed this central fact: Scelsi's music arises from the voice. His work with Michiko Hirayama generated not only the great cycle of the 'Canti del Capricorno' ('Songs of Capricorn') for soprano solo, but was also the matrix for this form of writing by directed improvisation that is the basis for all his solo instrumental works, and of which the ensemble works are simply the development. As for the a cappella choruses, they make up a remarkable group of seven pieces, the composition of which extends from 1958 to 1973, thus covering Scelsi's most important creative period and ideally reflecting the duality of his music: religious and experimental at the same time, mystic and pre-spectral. On the spiritual level, one finds the attempt at a religious syncretism between Roman Catholicism and Zen Buddhism through the mixture of Gregorian chant and 'shomyo', and on the musical level, a synthesis between the contrapuntal, tonal tradition of European music, enriched with a phrasing of infinitesimal fluctuations of Graptes and pitches in the Japanese style. 

 

"Except for 'Antifona', 'Tre canti sacri' and 'Three Latin Prayers', which use texts from the Latin liturgy, Scelsi's choral pieces are all written on phonemes. It is initially surprising that Scelsi, an excellent poet of the French language whose earliest flashes of inspiration were not musical but poetical, renounced using texts with meanings. At first glance, we tell ourselves that this choice of phonémes is intended to ensure him greater freedom in the intensification of the extraordinary profusion of singing methods and vocal colours that characterise the phrasing of his music. Thus, in addition to vibratos of variable width, infrachromatic glissandi, tremolos, trills, portamenti, glottal stops, blowing—all those ways he had of thickening notes, making their production smooth or granular—he adds specifically phonetic effects: changing vowels on the same pitch in order to modulate the harmonic spectrum, a process used well before Stockhausen systematised it in 'Stimmung' (1968); nasal or guttural production; use of occlusive, fricative and affricative consonants like so many differentiated ways of attacking sound; the superposition of identical melodic lines with lags of text between one voice and another, thus producing an effect of phonetic heterophony. That is the sound side of the Scelsian phonetic imagination but, like his music, which is both experience of sound and mystical through sound, these phonetic 'texts' also have a religious meaning.  

 

"As Michel Rigoni showed, these vocal sonorities constitute a kind of meta-language. In Sauh, Yliam and TKRDG, the same vowels and diphthongs appear that Scelsci, thus following the Vedic tradition, uses for their expressiveness and, one might say, their quasi-meaning as sound. It is known that in the Vedas, particularly with the Pratiskaya treatise, in which the phonetic modes of Vedic religious music are enumerated, the texts have greater importance owing to their sound rather than to their meaning. It is the consonantal accents, the colour of the vowels that, even before the meaning of the text, are Epos: for striking the participant in the ritual. Similarly, in the musical tradition of Tibetan lamas, the two syllables 'Om' and 'Hum' are the syllabic incarnations of the spirit-matter duality. This mystique of vocal sound is found in Scelsi's music. The syllable 'Om', which lends its name to the central movement of the triptych for chorus and orchestra Konx-Om-Pax, also appears at the end of the first piece in RDG when the third bass breathes out the concluding phrase on a low E. On the other rane the phonemes 'Sa' and 'Ri', which always express terror in the Tibetan tradition, are practically absent from Scelsi's work (and later on, we will see the reciprocal importance of the word 'Pax' in the choruses on Italian texts), whereas he frequently uses 'GU' and 'Di' whose joining in Sanskrit means 'to pray'. One also hears 'Gou', 'Dó', 'Ke', 'Dn', 'TI', 'Kou' and 'DI', characteristic of ancient Mesopotamian languages such as Hittite. For although Scelsi's choral music takes its inspiration from Oriental religions, it also seeks to be the reinvention of Mesopotamian music. The result of this mixture is imaginary religious singing that—with the exception of Antifona, directly stemming from Gregorian chant—is to dogmatic ritual what, for example, folk music according to Bartók is to Transylvanian folk music: a synthesis of spirit going through the recreation of the letter; a mixture of cultures and periods; a learned art based on popular practices in order to transcend its message. 

 

"'Antifona (sul nome Gesú)' ('Antiphony on the Name Jesus', 1970) belongs to the works with a Latin text, but the source of inspiration is, as Michel Rigoni points out, less Western than Syrian or Byzantine Leary In this piece, Scelsi takes responsorial or antiphonal psalmody as a model: two voices (chorus of tenors and basses in unison — or soloists) answer each other on the name of Jesus. Here there is no heterophonic writing nor phonetic meta-language, but rather a kind of modal neo-Gregorian whose melodic line, with its Initial leap of a fifth recalls both the 'Ave Maris stella' and a hymn to Jesus from the Byzantine tradition. 'The Three Latin Prayers' (1970) feature the same neo-mediaeval 'minimalism', heightened in this recording by the fact that the women's chorus sings in the distance, then draws closer, like a procession of nuns. 

 

"The 'spectral' choruses 'TKRDG' (1968), for six men’s voices, is essentially a rhythmic piece structured on the consonants of the title, irresistibly bringing to mind that exercise of Indian percussionists who memorise the rhythms of the tabla through the articulation of a series of meaningless percussive syllables. Here the voices are sustained by three percussionists (primarily playing conga drums), and an amplitied guitar played on the musician's lap (and therefore almost without the left hand, but the guitar has a special tuning; above all, one hears open strings and arpeggios on the tail piece): how can one help but think of the music of Northern India, with the congas taking the place of tablas, and the guitar replacing the tambura, in a sort of virtuoso rhythmic duel in which the voice guides the rhythm, taken up by the percussion and sustained, as in imaginary ragas, by the resonance of the strings?

"'Yliam' (1964) provides a total contrast with TKRDG: music of continuity and overlap, it prefigures Ligeti's famous 'Lux aeterna' (written two years later, but Ligeti, like everyone else, did not know this work, as it was not created until 1990). Thus, it would be more pertinent to evoke—since this is a question of 'immemorial' music—the passi-but-but of Taiwanese fishermen, a stupefying vocal tradition where the voices pile up by sliding progressively and imperceptibly higher. 'Yliam' is written in ten real parts (two solo sopranos, two solo altos and a double chorus of sopranos and altos, each divided in three parts). Here we do find, were it only everything said above, contrapuntal writing but, as in 'Lux aeterna', it is only the stratagem by which Scelsi obtains the sound of a moving framework, a long sliding cluster, giving greater importance to the furthest registers of the female voice, only a third wide (A-C), moving unbroken with imperceptible entrances, up to E flat. And still these pitches should be.defined as 'thick notes', to borrow Harry Halbreich's expression, the A, for example, going from G three-fourths sharp to B flat, by the lay of quarter-tones, and the more or less wide vibrato.
 

"The 'Tre Canti popolari' ('Three Popular Songs', 1958) have not enjoyed the same success as their 'religious' counterpart, the 'Tre Canti sacri' (Scelsi's sole success in choral music), even though we find the same spirit and technique here. However, this is a work in which Scelsi calls for 'natural voices', probably like those one might hear in some isolated village along the shores of the Mediterranean. Sung here by four soloists in order to respect this folk-like character, Scelsi pairs the voices (a dessu—soprano and tenor—and a teneur—alto and bass) in primitive, traditional forms of polyphony: polyphony by overlap, polyphony over an ostinato in which Scelsi for once (and for the last time) writes true melodies, formulas decorating the diatonic phrase of the basses that is repeated in progressively longer values. There is also, as in every work of Scelsi's, a harmonic/polar journey: from G to G sharp in the first piece, from F sharp to the fourth (B) in the second, and a focus on C in the third.

"The choruses of the 'religious-experimental' synthesis 'Sauh' is a cycle of two sets of two pieces for women's voices. 'Sauh' I-/I does not, strictly speaking, belong to the choral works, being written for two solo women’s voices (or for voice and magnetic tape). 'Sauh' III-IV (1973), recorded here, is the development of the two initial pieces, using the same honetic 'text', but with forces douled. Here we experience one of Scelsi's most constant writing principles a two-part counterpoint in which each line is divided in two singing. voices with slight time-lags (heterophony), and that within a very limited ambitus (here, barely more than a third). But sauh, in pre-Buddhist civilisations, is a word with a very broad meaning: 'power' and 'domain' as well as 'tolerance' and 'wisdom'. As Michel Rigoni pointed out, this cycle of four Sauh (in a sense, 'the four widsoms') can be related to the 'Praises of the Four Wisdoms', a Buddhist chant in the Japanese shomyo tradition.

"'Tre Canti sacri' (1958), for eight mixed voices, is understandably Scelsi's best-known choral piece. Here he synthesises his various writing techniques: polar notes, melodic or phonemic heterophonies, infra-chromatic glissandi, off-centre arch form, quasitonal language, systematic use of quarter-tones (less for writing micro-tonal melodies as for enlarging the palette of vocal inflexions—these are thus ornamental micro-intervals as can be heard in recent interpretations of Gregorian chant). As Harry Halbreich pointed out, Scelsi sometimes writes doublings an octave higher, distorted by a quarter-tone, with the effect of bringing out the beating, or even_additional sounds (in the first of the 'Tre Canti sacri', by the friction of an E and a D three-quarters sharp) appear. But all this, which comes under modernity, is cast in a mediaeval form. The 'Tre Canti sacri' are motets in ternary form written on liturgical texts. The first deals with the Annunciation, using 'Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et concepit de Spiritu Sancto' as the text; the second is the introit from the 'Requiem'; and the third, the 'Gloria in excelsis Deo'. As Michel Rigoni writes: 'All the tension that has built up in the course of these pieces converges on the final 'pax in terra', in a particularly impressive climax (third piece, bars 40-52) where, after ten extremely strained bars written in eight real parts on a single note (D flat) and textually based on the hypnotic repetition of the word 'pax', we have the explosion of polyphony in a dense, mobile texture, all the more striking as it is unusual in Scelsi's universe. The effect of this passage is undoubtedly intended to make the listener aware of the importance of this message of peace. With this final shock, the 'Tre Canti sacri' relate back to the tradition of the great works like Konx-Om-Pax (the title says ‘peace’ in three languages). The thirst for peace appears to be the cardinal point of Scelsi's thinking. Far from wishing to create a universal religious music, an ecumenical musical rite, Scelsi uses elements from known traditions in order to go beyond the eventual factors of conflicts between these religions, striving for a religion without God or worship but in search of a profound reality of the universe and a spirit of peace.
 

"This being learned vocal music of oral tradition, Scelsi needs interpreters capable of 'reading between the lines', since nothing essential is written if not there. It is necessary for the musicians to have understood that micro-intervals are not approximations of 'true' pitches, that playing styles are not a colour added to the melody, but the very foundation of the phrasing. The New London Chamber Choir, directed by James Wood and thoroughly familiar with the practice of micro-tonal music, is made up of such musicians. This recording of Scelsi’s choral music is the first complete recording, and, as concerns certain pieces 'PFKRDG', 'Yliam', 'Tre Canti popolari'), includes world premieres. It was made following a concert in tribute to Scelsi, celebrating the tenth anniversary of his death, given in September 1998 at the Abbey of Royaumont, in the framework of the 'Voix Nouvelles' ('New Voices') Festival. This music's difficulty of apprehension (even more than the difficulty of performing it) explains why we are hearing it for the first time as it is meant to sound, these works that are some forty—and thousands of—years old." (Marc Texier, tr. John Tyler Tuttle. From the liner notes.)

 

Performers: New London Chamber Choir, Percussive Rotterdam, James Wood

1. Three Latin Prayers: No. 1

2. Three Latin Prayers: No. 2

3. Three Latin Prayers: No. 3

4. Sauh III

5. Sauh IV

6. TKRDG I

7. TKRDG II

8. TKRDG III

9. Antifona

10. Yliam

11. Tre Canti Popolari: No. 1

12. Tre Canti Popolari: No. 2

13. Tre Canti Popolari: No. 3

14. Tre Canti Sacri: No. 1

15. Tre Canti Sacri: No. 2

16. Tre Canti Sacri: No. 3

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Gilles de Rais Order - Ultimate Orgasm

Excellent harsh noise tape from the relatively obscure and short-lived project Gilles de Rais Order. There is little information available, but owing to the split produced with Keith Brewer's Mania and the source material on this tape (the B side) using material from Sam McKinlay's The Rita, we can assume this is a moniker of someone connected in the north American harsh noise scene. We're faced with a threatening low rumbling bed of tortured drone on top of which come wincing screeches. Released on American noise label Trash Ritual in 2006.

 

A. Ultimate Orgasm

B. Male Dominant

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Impregnable / The Rita

Split between noise masters Jeff Witscher (Impregnable) and Sam McKinlay (The Rita). Witcher's side begins with a tranquil ambient drone before blasting into a hefty sonic assault, and McKinlay's side features a more screeching and dynamic style of harsh noise than the HNW-like style the project is famed for. Released on Gordon Wilson Ashworth's (Oscillating Innards) Iatrogenesis Records as a double CDr set of fifty copies in 2005.

 

1.1. Impregnable - Lovely Musk

2.1. The Rita - Steele And Shepard Dark Passages

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Genesis - Duke

"In March 1980 'Duke' became the second album Genesis released as a trio with the line-up consisting of Tony Banks (keyboards), Phil Collins (vocals, drums) and Mike Rutherford (bass, guitar). This album began their development towards more accessible pop and rock music – not without any success: For the first time a Genesis album climbed to the top of the UK charts, and 'Misunderstanding' turned out quite a successful single in the USA.

 

"When the tour with which the promoted their previous album, 'And Then There Were Three', had ended Genesis took a creative break. Up to that time they had been ceaselessly either recording albums or playing concerts so that this was the first longer pause for the band. The three musicians chose different ways to spend their free time. While Phil tried to save his first marriage and even moved to Canada for a time, Mike and Tony busied themselves recording their first solo albums, 'Smallcreep's Day' and 'A Curious Feeling' respectively. When he realized that his marriage could not be saved he returned to England and recorded the demos in his house that would later become his successful debut 'Face Value'. To take his mind of things he buried himself in work. In late 1979 he got together with Mike and Tony again.

 

"Large parts of 'Duke' were written at Phil's. While everybody had brought in songs they had written individually for the band, on 'Duke' they wanted to make the song-writing a group effort. One reason for this was that Mike and Tony had used the songs they had written for their respective solo albums so they came to the new album empty-handed. Phil, on the other hand, had a couple of finished songs and presented 'Misunderstanding' and 'Please Don't Ask' as his contributions to 'Duke'. The best songs (in the reviewer’s opinion) on 'Duke' were collaborations, though, and the band were very happy with them. Tony has even described 'Duke' as his favourite Genesis album.

 

"In the end they booked studio time at Polar studios in Stockholm, Sweden, from October to December 1979 to record the tenth Genesis album. Their executive producer for the last time was David Hentschel; he also sings backing vocals on some songs. 

 

"A closer look at 'Duke' reveals that the album is sort of divided into two parts. First there is the so-called 'Duke' suite consisting of 'Behind The Lines', 'Duchess', 'Guide Vocal', 'Turn It On Again', 'Duke's Travels' and 'Duke's End'. It was written by the whole group. All these songs were supposedly once part of a big longtrack made up in the best tradition of 'Supper's Ready' of a series of song fragments. However, there does not seem to be a 'bigger picture' behind the songs, and it is uncertain whether there ever was an underlying concept. The other group consists of half a dozen songs written by individual members of the band (coincidentally, each brought two songs). As a result the credits are distributed very evenly. 

 

"Genesis introduced a new sound hitherto unknown in the band, not least to the instrumentation: Tony Banks frequently restricts himself to the piano and does without weird synthesizer sounds and long solos. It is mainly his Yamaha CP-80 E-piano that puts its stamp on the whole album. Mike Rutherford plays some excellent, clear bass lines and unobtrusive yet effective guitar work.

 

"Phil Collins undergoes his biggest musical development on 'Duke': Not only is he a composer in his own right but his expressive vocals really come through on 'Duke'. Said Tony: 'only on 'Duke' did he become a real singer.' (C&V, S.219). He particularly excels in emotional ballads, performing songs like 'Alone Tonight' or 'Please Don't Ask' with a emotion and fragility unheard of before. This may well be connected to his private problems at the time. The drum work is revolutionized, too: the drums move to the fore again, and Collins experiments a lot with very earthy rhythms that are quite close to world music. Plus, 'Duke' is the first album on which Genesis used a drum machine.

 

"'Duke' leaves a very coherent impression, there is far less patchwork on it than on its predecessor 'And Then There Were Three'. The atmosphere is cool, almost sterile, an effect that is underlined both by the occasionally minimalistic music and the artwork by French artist Lionel Koechlin. It has this Albert character traipsing through a mainly white world that reminds one of 'The Little Prince'. 'Duke' is also a rather thoughtful album; its lyrics cover the rise and fall of careers in the show business, loneliness and missed opportunities.

 

"[...] With their tenth studio album Genesis begin a new era: the equally revered and hated pop era. Genesis sound modern and purified on 'Duke'; on 'Abacab' they would go far down that road. There is, however, lots of music left for friends of the progressive era. Songs like 'Behind The Lines', 'Duke's Travels' or 'Heathaze' are equally popular in either camp. The catchy melodies and the high level of musical proficiency make 'Duke' one of the few albums in Genesis’ discography that unites fans of all generations.

 

"Every song on 'Duke' shows that Genesis have adapted to the new situation as a trio. Their first album as a trio, 'And Then There Were Three', sounded like a loose collection of songs. 'Duke' is more coherent and atmospheric by far.

 

"'Duke' is not least an important cornerstone on Genesis’ way to the pop olymp generating their first commercial successes. It is also Phil Collins’ breakthrough as a full-fledged band member and songwriter – perhaps that is what encouraged him to embark on his unique solo career." (Sebastien Wilken, tr. Martin Klinkhardt. From the Genesis News website. See here.)

 

A1. Behind The Lines

A2. Duchess

A3. Guide Vocal

A4. Man Of Our Times

A5. Misunderstanding

A6. Heathaze

B1. Turn It On Again

B2. Alone Tonight

B3. Cul-De-Sac

B4. Please Don't Ask

B5. Duke's Travels

B6. Duke's End

 

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Genesis - Wind & Wuthering

"The 70s were the golden age of big albums. In a time where music is marketed multimedially one can hardly image what a compact work an album was and how important the cover design was. 'Wind & Wuthering' is such an album.

"Many listeners, remarkably, have said that 'Wind & Wuthering' is their atmospheric companion for the autumn season, though they do not explain whether that is so because of the music or because of the title and the cover art that goes with it. However that may be, the album was in fact recorded in autumn, and the cover and the music go very well with each other.  

"Tax evasion leads to peculiar things, one of which was 'Wind & Wuthering'. It is the first album the band recorded abroad. In September 1976 they booked into the renowned Hilvaria (Relight) Studios in The Netherlands where they would also record the album after that, 'And Then There Were Three'. Genesis took David Hentschel with them. He had already co-produced 'A Trick Of The Tail' and worked as a sound engineer on 'Nursery Cryme'. This cooperation continued until 1980, which proves how well they worked as a team. The band started recording with a lot of self-confidence, for they had coped well with the departure of Peter Gabriel and put out a really strong album with 'A Trick Of The Tail'. The self-confidence also caused problems that prompted Steve Hackett to leave the band after the tour. Everybody’s large output clashed with each other, particularly Tony’s and Steve's; in the end they had to agree on which songs would be put on the album. Thirty years later Tony said that he felt good about Steve's input at the time, but 'I think he said as much in various articles afterwards, that I was controlling it too much – and he's probably right' ('Chapter & Verse', p.192).

 

"The opening song 'Eleventh Earl Of Mar' is a good illustration. After a brief instrumental overture a strong, driving beat becomes the foundation for the verse. The song has an almost conventional structure with recurring parts were it not for the lack of a proper chorus. 'Eleventh Earl Of Mar' tells the story of the Jacobite uprising in the Highlands in 1715. It is narrated from the point of view of a child that hears the story from its father. The vocal rendition is particularly effective when you listen to the part where the (presumable) son urges the father to read on. You can almost feel the excited begging. The dream has also found a proper musical equivalent that interrupts the composition with a very calm passage. Steve's nylon guitar takes the lead role in this part. It also reveals the full strength of the band: They have found a great way to put the story to music and create, as it were, a fantastic film for the ears. 

 

"'One For The Vine' keeps up the momentum. It is an epic longtrack that flows along calmly despite its complex rendition. It is a typical Banks song full of changes in harmonies, peculiar time signatures and unusual chords. Tony had chosen a peculiar sequence. The individual parts are finished completely before the next part is introduced by a brief theme on the piano or the guitar. The band dispensed with transitions, as it were, in these places. They found it rather difficult to find a proper arrangement for the song, and that is not surprising if you examine the sheet music. The mood of the song resembles 'Mad Man Moon' from their previous album. The story, however, fits 'Eleventh Earl Of Mar', for here again is someone else who sends a host of people to destruction. The deeper focus of the song is on the fatal seduction of the masses. In 2008 Phil Collins said in an interview that they had the impression that not everybody did understand everything, every word in our songs, so the image was added to make the emotional character of our songs come out clearer ('Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung', 04/06/2008). The German print of the album actually had lyrics sheets with a translation.

 

"The song seems like a classical piano ballad that takes a rough turn in its third part and suddenly switches to a fusion-like theme in 5/4.  It is a funny idea and shows their talent for sophisticated composition and clever inventions. The most brilliant thing is the fact that they kept this song together as a harmonious unit despite this contrast and the fragmentation mentioned above. 

 

"'Your Own Special Way' was probably intended as a contrast for the melancholic, demanding 'One For The Vine'. It is a comparatively light-footed catchy song, and therefore became the only single from the album. Though it did not exceedingly well it did show that this band was capable of moving into the mainstream and writing big commercial hits. 'Wind & Wuthering' showcases the compositional style of the individual band members, and 'Your Own Special Way' is obviously Mike’s baby. Many fans dislike the song because it songs quite bombastic. It is a song about being together, but the word love is carefully avoided. Mike wrapped it all up in a lyrical text rich with metaphors. Despite the musical preferences one has to admit the song has qualities. It is consistent, accessible and has lyrics like a poem. 

 

"If 'Your Own Special Way' is Mike's thing then 'Wot Gorilla?' demonstrates Phil’s penchant for jazz rock. This one is a very lively piece of music that is ever so slightly over the top. Tony Banks, who co-wrote the song, adds some classical music to it by inserting chord changes that resembles baroque organ compositions. Despite some subliminal grumbling the band, ironically, stick to a simple 4/4 full of joy of playing. It sometimes occurs to the reviewer that the band tried to put all the vivacity of a Cinema Show live version into a studio recording. 

 

"Festive organ sounds mark the beginning of 'All In A Mouse’s Night', the first song on the second side of the album. The title indicates that we are told a fable. Just like 'Eleventh Earl Of Mar' this song has, despite repeating parts, no classical song structure, but it is a well-rounded, coherent song that ends in a majestic moral. Tongue-in-cheek humour luckily saves the lyrics from embarrassing pathos. The music lives off the contrast between verse-like thin parts and rich symphonic parts. This change in dynamics provides the tension the lyrics demand with their cat-and-mouse game. Steve adds a nervous ambient sound of scratching, wafting sounds in the quiet parts. The unorthodox use of the guitar and the complete lack of rock clichés show just how important Steve was for early Genesis, and a song like 'Blood On The Rooftops' illustrates the options the band lost when he left the band.  

 

"Classical guitar creates a lovely melancholy and leads the listener imperceptibly into the vocals. These stay close to the guitar line, melting into a perfect unity. 'Day and grey, and English film, the Wednesday play.' We immerse in the scene and are taken to England. The contrast between drab reality and shiny world of American movies becomes a listening experience. Phil and Steve work together perfectly. Steve provided melancholic verses, and Phil added a big chorus to it. Many fans consider 'Blood On The Rooftops' a highlight on 'Wind & Wuthering'. 

 

"'Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers' continues in this vein. The brief instrumental recall the musical interludes on 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway'. Steve’s floating nylon guitar and Tony’s almost whistling synth create a magic, otherworldly atmosphere. Slowly we float into the next song that is going full steam ahead. 'In That Quiet Earth' is a lively, sometimes hectic instrumental, a bit like 'Duke's Travels'. 'In That Quiet Earth' is the only song on 'Wind & Wuthering' that was written by whole band, and it proves how competent the band have become. Each musician has his opportunity to shine without overshadowing the others. They confidently create musical tensions and make good use from the large store of compositional options. Genesis have become a mature group who know what they want. They utilize the dramatic, wild element of the song to arrive on the spot in the relaxed, almost soulful mood of 'Afterglow'.  

 

"The effect of that was so great that they would use it live for the next ten years. Though 'In That Quiet Earth' may be replaced be other songs (e.g. in the 'Old Medley') the releasing effect of 'Afterglow' remained – it became a live classic. Tony explained that he had written it spontaneously: 'I wrote [Afterglow] pretty much in the time it takes to play it, and consequently [it] has a spirit about it that comes from being less contrived.' ('Chapter & Verse', p. 177). One will hardly find a better description for 'Afterglow'. It hovers along weightlessly, gains substance and finally towers like a thundercloud grown from a gentle shroud of clouds. Phil proves how much he has grown as a singer, how much strength there is in his initially fragile voice. From here on, Genesis songs do not aim at the brain, but at the heart. This ever increasing and intensifying finale leaves the listener with the impression of a dignified, almost august album. If you compare 'Wind & Wuthering' with its predecessor, 'A Trick Of The Tail', you will realize that this album was arranged very neatly without any frills. It is less romantic, less gentle than its predecessor, but it makes up for it with power and a sense of adventure. Genesis still tell their stories, but they have already turned their eyes towards a brighter, more streamlined future. With the last notes of 'Afterglow' ends a book that began with the words 'Looking For Someone' and spanned seven years full of glorious tales." (Robert Krauskopf, tr. Martin Klinkhardt. From the Genesis News website. See here.)

 

A1. Eleventh Earl Of Mar

A2. One For The Vine

A3. Your Own Special Way

A4. Wot Gorilla?

B1. All In A Mouse's Night

B2. Blood On The Rooftops

B3. 'Unquiet Slumber For The Sleepers...

B4. ...In That Quiet Earth'

B5. Afterglow

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