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bric-a-brac of misunderstood ideological detritus
this CD is a hodge-podge of ill conceived works,in all genres,all thrown/blown actually together under the concept of apparition, that of "spectres" the infamous quote from the Communist Manifesto of Marx & Engels, the idea of what haunts the globe today is what, I don't know poverty and hunger, corporate corruption are still with us even with the demise of Eastern European and Soviet Communism. The various "odes"here serve no purpose, it sheds no light on anything. Alexander Krein's "Ode" to Lenin was a work coerced,if you love Lenin, become an underground activist,never write music and in Krein's case it is even more problematic he was more interested in survival , a Jew in the Soviet Union,lived (1883 to 1951)his interst was in his roots in Klezmer music, this "ode" is awful,it is an exercise on how NOT to write music.Of course the USA have our "odes" here as well that falls into some kind of "propaganda" as Adam's dedication to 9/11 victims which "coincidentally" won a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts.How about the countless graves of innocents,children in Afghanistan and Iraq, where is their "ode". <
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>One ray of light here is Cage's "Essay", a voiceless piece, this was the accompaniment to Merce Cunningham's Dance "Point in Space, a video recording of the BBC, also available on VHS.Cage taped texts from Thoreau,he then had a technician omit the vowel timbres, leaving the more percussive consonants. When pitted with the dance the affect/effect is haunting-like,primordial, it doesn't really disturb the classical/modernist beauty of Cunningham's complex choreography. But as a stand-alone piece it is farely uninteresting. <
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>The Cornelius Cardew(1936-1981) work here was a socialist choir work ripped off actually from the Memorial Concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall,after Cardew's death in December 1981,some weeks after. Paul de Marinis has worked with Robert Ashley, a post-Cage artist of mixed endurance and interest, here the "Ode" to Stalin is corrosive yet within what cultural or ideological force field this work resonates in is anybody's guess. There are interesting paintings of Kolad and Malamid,that mocks the Cult of Stalin the reverance un-religious of the infallible leader attached to that darkest times of Soviet history.Those paintings I beleive is what de Marinis was attempted to get at.