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John Zorn's Chamber Music
avant-garde symphonies and smaller ensembles


Eventually, every ambitious musician wants to compose classical music. As Frank Zappa said, an orchestra is "the ultimate instrument."

John Zorn is no exception. Since the 1970s, he's worked with classical ensembles of all sizes. Between his jazz bands, soundtracks, and improvised heavy metal albums, he always finds the time to compose and record unusual chamber pieces for string quartet, solo cello, solo drums, full orchestra, clarinet quartet, and even a wind octet.

As each new piece is recorded, he releases it as part of an ongoing chamber music series.

But of course, Zorn has to twist it a little bit. His definition of chamber music is more of a sensibility than the choice of instruments. In some cases, he takes a traditional approach — the music is weird, but it's classical. In other cases, he'll make an album of computerized static and call it chamber music.

Most of this music is composed in blocks: quick-changing, contrasting chunks of melody and sound. In some cases, the blocks all fit into a particular theme — like cartoon music, for example. In other cases, there is no obvious theme. After repeatedly listening to the piece, it can become so familiar that it seems to develop from one point to the next, like a normal song. But it never quite comes together.

This can be frustrating for the average listener, but that's what Zorn's music — and avant-garde music in general — is all about. These albums are truly unique and creative. They are also very complex, requiring the listener to invest some time to understand them.


Christabel 1972 five flutes
The Book of Heads 1978 solo guitar
Dead Ringer 1982 solo piano
Road Runner 1986 solo accordion
Cat o' Nine Tails 1988 string quartet
For Your Eyes Only 1989 chamber orchestra
The Dead Man 1990 string quartet
Carny 1991 solo piano
Memento Mori 1992 string quartet
Angelus Novus 1993 wind octet
Aporias 1994 piano and orchestra
Dark River 1995 four bass drums
Kol Nidre 1996 clarinet quartet, string quartet
Music for Children 1996 violin, percussion, piano
Orchestra Variations 1996 full orchestra
Shibboleth 1997 string trio, percussion, clavichord
Rituals 1998 voice and ten instruments
Le Momo 1999 violin and piano
Amour Fou 1999 violin, cello and piano
Untitled 1999 solo cello
Contes de Fees 1999 violin and chamber orchestra
La Machine de l'etre 2000 voice and orchestra
Gris-gris 2000 solo percussion
Chimeras 2001 voice and twelve instruments
Necronomicon 2003 string quartet

A third of these pieces have not been released. My guess is that Zorn hasn't recorded all of them, but he plans to. I expect a lot more chamber music albums in the next few years.

[ COMMENTS? ]



Click on any album cover pictured above to read the review.

Zorn: I don't think of myself as a jazz or rock artist. I think of myself as someone who's using all of these different elements to create something else. But if I had to pick one line where I came from, it would be more classical than anything else.


Zorn: This music is episodic — it doesn't develop the way normal music develops. See to me, cartoon music is important because it follows a visual narrative. It's following the images on the screen. Now separate it from those images and you still have music. Valid, well-made music. But it does not follow any traditional development that I know of. It's following a visual narrative — all of a sudden this, all of a sudden that.

One section is the pitches from a melody by Ives broken up the way Webern would do it. Then an improv section. Then something I completely wrote out that's mine. Then a section dealing with noise. So the piece is kind of like five different things going on, but intercut from one to the next.


Zorn: Composing Cat o' Nine Tails was a breakthrough for me in terms of being able to relate to classical players on their own terms. To take advantage of classical musicians at their best, you give them written material, because that's what they do best.

But you have to inspire them from the page. I try to put as much extra musical material and information into my music as I can possibly squeeze in. A very important thing all through my musical life is to make sure that the musicians involved are having fun and like what they're doing. If that means I turn it into a game, then I turn it into a game.

If it means I have to play compositional games to excite the musicians, or include improvisational elements if I think those musicians will get into it, then I'll do that. Making it fun is the best way to get a good performance.


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The Book of Heads

composed 1978
recorded March 19, 1995
released September 1995
ONE DISC:   thirty-five tracks, 56 minutes

I would love to see the notation for this album.

Zorn has written 35 etudes for solo guitar, each between 30 seconds and 3 minutes long. Some of the tracks sound like music. Most of them don't. The guitarist is called upon to tap the guitar body, yank on strings, bend notes until they break, repeat the same brief phrase over and over, wipe his fingers across the strings, etc. There are a lot of sound effects and noisy moments.

Zorn wrote this back in 1978 with his friend Eugene Chadbourne in mind. The idea (as far as I can tell) is to compose a list of every sound a guitar can make, a demanding task that limits you to the best guitarists. Although Chadbourne could probably pull it off, Marc Ribot plays on this album.

When I listen to The Book of Heads, I wait patiently for something to happen. I hear a few notes, then silence, a twang, a bit of silence, and then another sound. It's one of those Zorn albums that makes you say, "That is some weird shit, man." You listen to it a few times, you are simultaneously amazed and confused, and then you put it back on the shelf for months.

The etudes (which are numbered but not named) are listed on the back of the CD case in a grid, five across and seven down. It looks like there's a pattern. Maybe each set of five etudes has something in common. Then again, maybe not. This is typical when you hear Zorn's strangest albums — it's so abstract, you start searching for compositional clues that will explain the music. If you can find it, the album transforms from weird shit to something really special. If you can't, you either fake it (you make up an explanation) or you just give up and move on to a new CD.

The album combines some of Zorn's most consistent compositional techniques: the use of miniature movements, blocks of music strung together without obvious progression, atonal and dissonant sound instead of "normal" music, and pieces written to bring out the best in creative musicians.


Some of the etudes:

On etude #8, Ribot plays a six-note melody while dragging a violin bow across the strings.

On #14, he plays a few random notes for thirty seconds.

On #16, he knocks on the body and plays a few bent notes.

On #21, he sounds like he's pulling the guitar apart, string by string.

On #23, the acoustic guitar becomes electric — and it sounds like a power drill. (The drill sound returns on #27, a very violent track.)

On #32, he plays different musical styles — funk, surf, and rock and roll.


Zorn: Condensed from over 80 original pieces, these 35 etudes each define their own musical universe with an improvisational language distinct unto themselves, yet still are unified into a single compositional vision.

With each piece I've tried to stretch the capabilities of the guitar in various directions relating to harmonic voicings, sound aggregates, texture, simultaneity and finger control. Perhaps these musical miniatures will one day be used to help introduce creative techniques and effects, teach improvisational skills, or even just for fun as part of the standard guitar canon.




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Angelus Novus

recorded 1992, 1996, and 1997
released 1999
ONE DISC:   nine tracks, 47 minutes

This album has two pairs of songs. The first pair, Carny and For Your Eyes Only, are written for imaginary cartoons. For Your Eyes Only is played by a twenty-piece orchestra. It starts off with a bang, whipping through one cartoon theme after another for 14 minutes. Carny is a collection of cartoon themes played on solo piano. It has the same pace as For Your Eyes Only, but the opposite form of arrangement. One is maximal and the other is minimal.

The other pair are wind pieces written many years apart. Christabel was written by Zorn in 1972 when he was in music school. It's an eight-minute piece in two movements. Although there's a viola in the mix, the song is dominated by flutes. The song is simple and very effective, starting gently on a single note, held for a full minute. The music builds up slowly from there, returning over and over to that same note.

Angelus Novus was written in 1993 and is dedicated to Walter Benjamin. This song is played by a wind octet. In five movements, they blend a few cartoon styles on clarinet, they re-create the music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind on oboes and bassoons, they play klezmer melodies, and then they drift into a haunting, four-minute dirge. The piece ends with the sound of a foghorn on french horns, a few phrases repeated from the earlier movements, and a subtle finale straight out of the Varese songbook.


The kabbalah relates that in every instant God creates an immense number of new angels, all of whom only have the purpose, before they dissolve into naught, of singing the praise of God before His throne for a moment. The new angel passed himself off as one of those before he was prepared to name himself.

(Walter Benjamin, 1933)


Although the music on this album is complex, each piece is short enough to understand after you've heard them four or five times. The music is very diverse, covering a wide range of arrangements and over twenty years between the earliest and latest compositions.

The songs are unified by their use of the first note. In each case, the first sound you hear sets the tone for the rest of the song.



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Redbird

recorded 1995
released 1995
ONE DISC:   two tracks, 50 minutes

The two tracks on this album are gentle and enigmatic, with some space between the notes. One of them is tuned low. The other is at a higher pitch. It feels like Zorn took a minimalist, repetitive instrumental and peeled it apart, allowing you to listen to the high and the low parts independently.

The first track, Dark River, is a nine-minute solo for bass drums. It's too low to hear without distorting my speakers. If I turn it up loud enough to hear it, my speakers crackle and pop with every note. I like the song, but I think it was recorded poorly. (Then again, maybe I just need better speakers.)

The title track sounds a lot like Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet. I'm not complaining. Anything that sounds like Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet is worth listening to. The difference is in the instruments (Zorn uses percussion, viola, cello and harp), and the feel of it — you can hear echoes of the more somber Masada songs in here, as well as a hint of Memento Mori (from String Quartets and Cartoon S/M).

Over all, this is a good album, but not something to buy right away if you're getting into Zorn. This is one of the few Zorn albums that expands on a single theme. Typically, his albums cover a dozen themes a minute. It's easy-listening, a little bit too repetitive, and not typical of his work.

Douglas Wolk on Redbird:

[The album is] introduced by a nearly silent eight-minute percussion piece (played to zen perfection by James Pugliese). [The title track is inspired by] painter Agnes Martin, whose work's merciless calm is shared by the music. A chamber ensemble plays a single note or chord every few seconds, then lets it gradually decay; this process goes on for forty minutes. Depending on the amount of attention you pay to it, Redbird can be either soothing or maddening. In any case, when a composer who made his name with his short attention span pulls off something sustained this long and this well, it's a real achievement.


Art Lange's review:

Redbird is dedicated to Agnes Martin, and named after one of her paintings in which ultra-thin reddish-pink parallel straight lines horizontally cover a white canvas. Looked at from a distance the lines are invisible and the canvas appears empty but for a subtle hazy glow which seems to pulsate.

To actually see the lines you must stand so close as to be nearly inside the painting; then the lines seem delicate and mono- chromatic until, peering almost micro- scopically, one begins to notice how the pigment (it could be paint or chalk) is not continuous, but is interrupted and must climb over or around minute bumps and imperfections in the fabric of the canvas.

Redbird creates an illusionary point of respite by offering a slow, tranquil sequence of chords (voiced in varying combinations of harp, viola, cello, and vibraphone) which shimmer and quietly vibrate, expand, and disappear like concentric circles in a pool of water.


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Duras, Duchamp

recorded April and May 1997
released 1997
ONE DISC:   five tracks, 47 minutes

On this album, Zorn pays tribute to two artists, Marguerite Duras and Marcel Duchamp. (Think of them as MarDu #1 and MarDu #2.)

The first tribute is divided into four sections — a long piece, a short piece, a long piece, and another short piece. Each of the long pieces builds up slowly and beautifully, making the most of a minimalist composition that creates a mood of concentrated tranquility. The shorter pieces have the same tone, but they are too short to develop. They feel like punctuation to the longer pieces.

It's played with violin, piano, organ, and percussion. Anthony Coleman's piano is particularly good here. This music has the same feel as Redbird and Filmworks X.

As a whole, the song works very well. Compared to other minimalist Zorn compositions, it's his most rewarding. It's hard to stop listening to Duras over and over all day long.

Etant Donnes (69 Paroxyms for Marcel Duchamp) is a collection of sounds created with household objects and tools, including blocks of wood, stones, a saw, and someone drinking and coughing. Cello and violin are weaved into the sound effects. It feels like dramatic background music for a drunken carpenter. It's not a song, really. You could hardly call it music. It's very weird, but also fun.

It was recorded on April 1st . . .


In the CD booklet, the tribute to Duchamp is broken into three parts, but it's recorded on the disc as a single track. These are some of the sounds.

Part One [8:00]

drum - creak - snapping matches - drop in bucket of water - rocking chair - electricity, drum, knock - coins in dish - running water, bells, chimes - chains, humming - smacking stick - elevator bell - rattle, rolling wheel, wind-up toy - footsteps - squeaking wheel - wind chimes, breathing - plucked strings - steam escaping, crackling sound - birds - drums - rattlesnake - whistling - loud banging, crashing - gurgling, slurping, coughing - door bangs shut

Part Two [3:15]

whirling sound - smacking stones together - popped guitar string - boiling water - clapping - squeaky wheel - electric fan - sawing wood

Part Three [2:02]

gong - loud banging, crashing - splashing water - slurping, coughing


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Aporias

recorded 1998 ?
released September 1998
ONE DISC:   ten tracks, 33 minutes

On Aporias, John Zorn has employed a 75-piece orchestra and a boys' choir to perform half an hour of music in ten movements. Each of the movements is a collection of brief compositional blocks, with no obvious progression from one block to the next. At first, it feels like he took about 200 tiny chunks of music and strung them together randomly. But as you keep listening to the album over and over, you hear subtle themes repeated throughout the piece.

The musicians play alone and in pairs, taking turns. First you hear piano, then strings. A flute comes in, it fades, then the strings stop and you hear a bell. Then there's a bit of percussion, clarinets play a few notes, the percussion ends, and the strings return for a moment. Etcetera. If more than three musicians play at once, the volume rises and the music starts to split apart.

Some of the movements have a vague theme. Drammatico, for example, uses the string section to play tension-filled music straight out of a Morricone soundtrack. Languendo is made up of low notes on drums, echoing piano, and bassoons. Risentito is composed of rapid handclaps and piano.

Although the music is made up of parts, it flows. Each musician comes in at just the right time, keeping the pace. Every time you hear it, you become more familiar with the blocks — you start to feel a pattern — but you always discover something new. By the tenth time you hear it, you feel a sense of familiarity and discovery at the same time.

Aporias is my favorite chamber music album by John Zorn. It was one of my earliest Zorn albums. At first, I hated it. But then I learned how he built the music and I found a lot of depth in each movement. He references a lot of his influences here, but in very subtle ways.

If you are frustrated by abstract music, this album isn't for you. But if you want a good example of Zorn's classical side, this is the best introduction.


Zorn: An aporia is an impossible passage. Aporias, part piano concerto/part requiem is about those mysterious and spiritual passages separating life from death.

The piece is subtitled "Requia For Piano and Orchestra," but these requia are not for any particular artists or groups of artists. They are dedicated to ALL artists and to the indomitable spirit of creativity itself — the spark that refuses to die.


Zorn: I've got an incredibly short attention span. In some sense, it is true that my music is ideal for people who are impatient, because it is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast.

Pacing is essential. If you move too fast, people tend to stop hearing the individual moments as complete in themselves and more as elements of a "cloud effect."

You've got to realize that speed is taking over the world. Look at the kids growing up with computers and video games — which are ten times faster than the pinball machines we used to play. There's an essential something that young musicians have, something you can lose touch with as you get older.

I love bands like Husker Du, Metallica, Black Flag, Die Kreuzen. Speed bands, thrash bands — it's a whole new way of thinking, of living. And we've got to keep up with it. I'll probably die trying.


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The String Quartets

recorded December 1998 to May 1999
released July 1999
ONE DISC:   sixteen tracks, 64 minutes

These four quartets are constructed from dozens of musical parts. Each block is blended into the next, creating a jump-cut style a lot like Naked City. But it's played in a classical vein, so it feels a little grim and academic.

Cat o' Nine Tails is a collection of cartoon themes, presented as a set of relentless jump-cuts. Zorn calls it "a piece with a lot of drama and humor and many musical games hidden in the web of its inner details."

The Dead Man is indexed in thirteen parts, each about a minute long. The parts seem to have no real connection except that they are abstract. You can think of them as anti-melodies of sound. "This set of thirteen miniatures contains perhaps the most overt S/M subtexts in all my work. Composed in the same year as Torture Garden, I have always imagined these two suites as soundtracks to necessarily short S/M scenes."

Memento Mori is . . . long. And hard to digest. Zorn describes it as a "hermetic work that continues to defy comprehension by most listeners. I feel that I have come upon something really new here and if you let it, it will take you by the hand on a unique and emotional journey." You have to listen to this song about ten times before you can even begin to get it. It's a real work of art, but it's almost completely inaccessible.

Kol Nidre "is sung to open the services on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. It has nothing in common with the traditional Jewish melody sung by cantors during this solemn ceremony. Late Beethoven and Arvo Part seem more like references here. It was written at one sitting in less than half an hour."


Zorn: Writing string quartets is an exciting challenge and when the Kronos Quartet first asked me for a quartet I took the challenge very seriously. The result has been (to date now) four quartets, three commissioned by Kronos and one written in a flash of inspiration during the days I was composing the Masada songbook.

Each quartet is very different in form, conception, and tone. In a certain sense Cat o' Nine Tails is about the visual, The Dead Man is about the sensual, Memento Mori the emotional and Kol Nidre the spiritual. But they also share elements in common and it is interesting to hear the overlap and development across the eight years in which these pieces were written.



Zorn: What matters most to me is that each piece will stand up on its own. Fifty, a hundred years from now, it'll still work. That's what I care about. Of course, I want the musicians involved to be happy with it as well. When I finished Cat o' Nine Tails, I would have been really upset if the Kronos Quartet didn't like it. But on the other hand, I know this is a great piece and if they don't like it I don't give a fuck. But I want them to enjoy it and to have fun doing it.
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Cartoon S/M

recorded 1998, 1999, and 2000
released November 2000
DISC ONE:   four tracks, 49 minutes
DISC TWO:   sixteen tracks, 61 minutes

Cartoon S/M is Zorn's magnum opus classical album. He's taken songs from other CDs and recorded them with new ensembles, creating an up-to-date overview of his best chamber music.

The first disc is inspired by the work of Carl Stalling, the man who wrote music for Bugs Bunny cartoons. Cat o' Nine Tails is played by a string quartet, Carny is a song for solo piano, and For Your Eyes Only is played by a twenty-piece orchestra. All three are built from blocks of familiar cartoon themes, with a complex structure that might remind you of Zorn's game pieces. Each song is about fifteen minutes long, so you have to listen to them a lot before it all sinks in.

Zorn: When I was in college in St. Louis I was working on my thesis on the cartoon music of Carl W. Stalling, who wrote for Warner Bros. The guy is really a genius. When you listen to the music abstracted from the visuals of the cartoons, it's amazing. That's the prime period, the 1940s, for Warner Bros. I think they really did an incredible jump in film techniques.

The second disc has sixteen tracks, but only four songs. The first song, The Dead Man, is indexed on the CD into thirteen one-minute parts. This is the string quartet counterpart to Naked City's "hardcore miniatures" — each minute explores one or two styles, with an emphasis on sound instead of melody.

This is followed by two of his most complex songs, Music for Children and Memento Mori. Both songs are very difficult to describe — and to listen to.

Both discs end with a haunting and ceremonial song called Kol Nidre. It's presented here in two arrangements, string quartet (disc one) and clarinet quartet (disc two).


This double CD of classical music was Zorn's seventh release of 2000. It's hard to keep up!

Zorn goes through his phases and his musical projects quickly. He had his Masada/Radical Jewish Culture period, his Naked City period, and his hardcore noise period.

Then he concentrated on string ensembles and chamber music, which he released as solo albums or soundtracks. With each new phase, he uses what he's learned in his previous periods.

On Cartoon S/M, he combines his string quartet ideas with the abrupt style changes of Naked City, the dissonance of Painkiller, and the Jewish mysticism that creeped into some his Masada albums.

This album contains everything on The String Quartets (but the musicians are different).

Carny and For Your Eyes Only are also on Angelus Novus.

Music for Children is also on the Music for Children album.

So if you're trying to decide which album to buy first, start with this one.
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Madness, Love and Mysticism

composed 1999
recorded late 2000 and early 2001
released May 2001
ONE DISC:   three tracks, 52 minutes

In 2001, Zorn released this trio of minimalist chamber music pieces. The first, Le Momo, is a sixteen-minute "ritual of exorcism and possession inspired by the works of visionary 20th century shaman Antonin Artaud." It is played by Jennifer Choi (violin) and Stephen Drury (piano).

The second song (untitled) is a fifteen-minute solo cello piece played by Erik Friedlander. It is "dedicated to Joseph Cornell, the hermetic New York artist whose delirious box constructions mix innocent nostalgia with uncomfortable personal obsessions."

The third, Amour Fou, is twenty minutes long, played by piano, cello, and violin (using the musicians from the two previous songs). According to the liner notes, it "explores love — obsessive love, mad love, doomed love."

I couldn't get into this album until I imagined that each song is the soundtrack to a short film. I used the music as a narrator of the story, describing the actions (and maybe the thoughts) of the characters. There are also moments where the musicians create sound effects, like dripping water or a ringing phone.



Moments in the imaginary movies:

Le Momo: At 6:00, you'll hear "slasher music," followed by a lot of violent sounds (including pounding nails). At 14:10, the teapot begins to whistle. It continues until 15:40. At the end, you'll hear slasher music again. This song is shrill and noisy.

Untitled: At 2:00, the artist is concentrating on his work. At 2:30, a bug flies around the room. At 3:05, there is a trampoline sound, followed by the bug again.

Amour Fou: At 7:10, you can hear a swarm of insects. At 15:00, the main character is searching for something in someone's home — afraid that he'll get caught. At 17:00, he finds it. (Maybe this is a movie about a stalker.)
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Songs from the Hermetic Theater

recorded March 2001
released June 2001
ONE DISC:   four tracks, 51 minutes

This is the worst Zorn album I've ever heard. That title was once held by Lacrosse, but Lacrosse has an edge — it has a certain kind of depth to it, a complexity that makes you want to understand it.

Songs from the Hermetic Theater is different. It's all on the surface. It's an album of failed experiments and bad gimmicks. The first and third tracks are nothing but static. The first, American Magus, is listed as "electronic music." The other, The Nerve Key, is called "computer music." Both are a waste of time. I've heard plenty of abstract, this-isn't-going-anywhere music from Zorn before — and plenty of noise labeled as music, too — but this time it doesn't work. It isn't creative, unique, or interesting.

The second song, In the Very Eye of Night, begins with filmmaker Maya Deren talking about her work. That lasts for about a minute. When she stops, a low, windy drone comes up. It continues for 10 minutes, shifting a little bit as the sounds of water and a glass bowl are added.

In this case, you can say that something is happening, but the song is too simple. Maya Deren's monologue gets old after the second or third time. And the droning sound is too flat. Zorn has composed songs out of wind before (on Filmworks VI and Music for Children) but this time it's just filler.

The final track is described as "a bizarre meditation on the work of artist/shaman Joseph Beuys, scored for string orchestra and an incredible array of homemade sound devices." In other words, while violins play, Zorn makes sounds with metal pipes, an electric fan, bricks, a mason jar, vacuum tubes, a rubber ball, a power saw, etc.

Zorn already did this on Duras Duchamp. In the song Etant Donnes, Zorn made noises with household objects for 13 minutes while minimalist music played in the background. This time he's done the same thing for 16 minutes with a different set of objects. Both songs are sort of silly and pointless, but at least the first one was unique.


Fortunately, you can hear this album without buying it. You can create your own version in the privacy of your own home!

To create the same effect as American Magus and The Nerve Key, just tune your radio to static. Then turn the volume up to 11. Record this sound for 14 minutes, then record it again for 9 minutes. Congratulations! You are already halfway done.

Now place an electric fan close to running water. (Not TOO CLOSE. Be careful!) Record this for 11 minutes. During the first minute, talk about yourself. When you're finished, you'll have your own version of In the Very Eye of Night.

Now for the finale. Go into the garage. Bring your CD player so you can play your favorite classical album. (Use something haunting and beautiful, with a lot of strings.) While that plays in the background, record yourself making noise with every object you can find.

Hammer a nail into a board. Drag a brick across the floor. Smack two lawn chairs together. Pour paint into a plastic bowl. Bounce a rubber ball against the wall. Throw your car keys at a two-by-four. Keep it going for 16 minutes.

Now you've got your own version of BeuysBlock. Take the recording and burn it on to a CD.

Done! You just saved yourself 15 bucks.

DIY, dude.




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Chimeras

recorded January 3 and 4, 2003
released April 2003
ONE DISC:   thirteen tracks, 34 minutes

In 2003, Zorn released this chamber piece "scored for a Pierrot Lunaire ensemble plus percussion." It is "divided into two books, six movements each." (He's added an interlude near the end.) Each movement is between one and five minutes long.

Like most of his chamber work, this piece is challenging and intricate. To get it, you have to listen over and over, looking for patterns, trying to become so familiar with it that it eventually comes together and makes some kind of sense.

Unfortunately, after hearing this album over ten times, I still don't get it. The vocals ruin it. The singer's voice rises and falls on seemingly random notes, distracting you from the music.

The music is good, but derivative. I can hear echoes of Aporias, Music for Children, and Kristallnacht throughout the piece. Zorn employs some of his most common themes for chamber music — a quick cartoon passage, a moment of silence, something violently loud, a brief repeated melody, sustained notes on flute and organ, and the use of percussion to accent it all.

Without the singing, this album would probably be as subtle and strange as Aporias. But I can't get past that voice. It sounds like an opera singer mimicking Morse code for half an hour.

In the CD booklet, Zorn says Chimeras "is realized here by some of the best musicians I have ever encountered and it is the musicians, as always, who have truly brought this music to life." That's true. Listening to this album, it's easy to imagine lesser musicians screwing up the intricate, carefully- balanced music. To make a 30-minute piece of musical blocks flow, the musicians have to be extremely talented. They all play beautifully.


The cover art for Chimeras (by Hieronymous Bosch) looks like mud when it's scanned into a computer. But when you get your hands on the CD and look closely, it's great. On a black/brown background, tiny people and monsters are floating and swimming. Up close, you can see faces, fingers and toes, fangs, beaks, and wings.


Zorn: In searching for a unique system to unify the composition I found myself drawn to the experimental work of the Oulipo. This group envisioned a new, imaginative literature borne out of exercises in limitations and constraint.

I became particularly intrigued by the lipogram, a work in which the author is compelled into excluding one of several letters of the alphabet. The first known lipogram is divided into twenty-three chapters, the first without A, the second without B, and so on.

Each of the twelve movements here avoid a particular pitch. The twelve pitches avoided, in succession, make up what is generally considered to be the first tone row Schoenberg ever utilized.

I mention this only as a point of reference for students and scholars. [And that guy, Scott Maykrantz, with the web site.]






solo albums   .   masada   .   naked city   .   soundtracks   .   game pieces   .   chamber   .   painkiller   .   footnotes

all of this Zorn stuff is
© 2004 Scott Maykrantz
except the quotes and the artwork