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PRICE:
$25.00
$25.00
IN STOCK
ARTIST
CURRAN, ALVIN
TITLE
The Works
FORMAT
LP
LABEL
OUR SWIMMER
CATALOG #
WELLE 101LP
WELLE 101LP
GENRE
EXPERIMENTAL
RELEASE DATE
6/25/2021
The Works
-- one of the most famous pieces by brilliant American composer
Alvin Curran
-- was not created by will and direct purpose but, as the composer himself states, as a "providential accident" which is to say quite organically. Combining piano and voice with found sound and a custom-built Serge modular synthesizer,
The Works
is a slowly developing piece where space and ambient tape are eventually overtaken by raga-esque chanting and frenetic piano playing, where synthesizer washes become full-on workouts all leading to a coda where the listener is "finally carried off on the wheels of the Berlin U-Bahn." Curran -- whose initial training and musical education was as a pianist -- had been living in Roma, Italy, in the mid-70s returning to his roots and performing regularly in cocktail lounges on Via Veneto. It was this return to piano and vocals that became the genesis for
The Works
. In relearning the piano, a five-note "motive" took hold. Added to this was "a recording I had made of our 14 year old dachshund Caspar just before he died. It was, in fact, a love song which he persisted in singing all day after meeting a lovely bitch in heat in Piazza Navona. This I knew would be the beginning of the piece." As the piece expands further the listener will hear "cows munching grass, the Rome-Florence express train, a horse-fly caught against a window pane, my footsteps approaching a Roman fountain and later going up the steps of my old studio, cicadas, an Amsterdam calliope, a tin can being kicked, and a series of sounds from La Serra di Lerici." Though
The Works
has been performed in many incarnations over the years, it's this performance -- captured on February 24, 1980, and originally released that same year by the short-lived Italian avant-garde label Fore -- that is the definitive version, and one of the finest recordings ever made by the celebrated composer.
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