Catching The Waves

Manchester United Nil

I like to be on the cutting-edge of the forefront of the avant-garde of the zeitgeist, which is why I'm reviewing Obscure II, an album that has been freely available on the net for just two whole ...years. Sigh. I am the antithesis of trendiness.

Right, drag yourself away from the advert for moisturising handcream that is the album cover and take note: Obscure II is the soundtrack to the depiction of dark corridors, nasty creatures and artistic blood-spatter patterns that are to be found in the 2007 survival-horror computer game of the same name. You're now surmising that you're set fair for death metal, guttural vocals and maybe even a hairy frontman exploding a hot water bottle through sheer lungpower. Well, no. There's not even an exploding codpiece, because metal this ain't. Or rock.

The reason? Obscure II, otherwise known as Obscure: The Aftermath, is the work of Olivier Derivière, a Frenchman who has studied composition and orchestration at the Nice National Conservatoire, jazz and film scoring at Berklee College of Music, and who  went on to spend a year working with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and some hick called John Williams. So expect to hear some decent orchestration. However, Monsieur D. also created the soundtrack for last year's Alone In The Dark, another (though much more popular) grim wade through ghouls and gore. So expect to hear some decent electronica. Indeed, the electronica elements (drums/guitar/synths) are meant to represent the "corruption" of the traditional instruments and vocals that form the meat of the composition.

I find that most cinema and game soundtracks sound necessarily disjointed given the piecemeal demands of the format. Ideas aren't given time to develop or suffer from compression due to the exigiencies of drama. Outcast II doesn't avoid that fate but it does contain some exquisite singing from the Childrens' choir of the Paris Opera (Latin text galore), forthright back-up from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and enough melodic depth to keep the listener happy. It's strange that I find cantatas, masses and requiems from the classical repertoire to be satisfying, even though they too are, by their very nature, programmatic, or to use the technical term, "bitty". Perhaps I'm just a fuddy-duddy. But I'll have to get used to it, for it seems that game and cinema soundtracks have now mostly replaced liturgical rituals as a source of employment for composers. For Kyrie and Dies Irae, read Training and Boss Fight.

Enough verbiage. There are no mp3s for me to link to (grrr), but Monsieur D. has kindly supplied a media player that will drive me to tears while I install it. You're at liberty to play whatever you like, but I'll recommend two tracks you could try first:

• Infested People - This is two minutes of the Boston Quartet (members of the Boston S.O.) going at it hammer and tongs. It starts off as if Shostakovich had written a 16th string quartet, goes along at a fair clip, morphs into some Philip Glass/John Adams at the 01:34 mark and ends far too quickly. I'd love to see the score released or, better still, the movement worked up into something more substantial. It's an entertaining piece of modern classical music. There's a sentence you don't see every day.
• Corruption with Rage and Melancholy - With such a terrible title, this had to be the opening track and main theme of Obscure II. It's a goodly stew of strings, ethereal vocals, electronic growls, and acoustic/electronic percussion. The voice and violin solo near the end is especially affecting. If you like this track, you should like the album.

Obscure II won the Milthon award for best soundtrack at the 2007 Paris Game Festival, and I can see why. I'd never have heard the album (which is not Creative Commons-licensed) if Olivier Derivière had not made it available to download for free, and now he has a new fan who is considering buying Alone In The Dark, all his subsequent compositions, and any Derivière-shaped soap figurines that might appear in time for Christmas.*

I apologise for cobbling together an album cover from Obscure II's game packaging but there were no suitable images to go with the zipped album file. By the way, remember that guff about composers turning away from religious formats in order to earn a living? Monsieur Derivière is currently composing an opera and a... mass. Honestly, I can't win.

Olivier Derivière - Obscure II soundtrack (zipped file only, scroll to third album on page)

Olivier Derivière - blog and flashy website

*This is, of course, in jest. I don't wash.

Scores Galore

Photo: Luz A. Villa

I'll have you know that the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) is a Canadian umbrella organisation for the Petrucci Music Library, a collaborative repository of public domain and CC-licensed music scores. "This is a wonderful idea, O handsome one," I hear you say, "and I shall be only too pleased to investigate further when the project has come to fruition. In the meantime, I'm off to explore the differences between crunk, hyphy, moob, and chopped and screwed hip-hop. Peace."

*chuckles to self*

Not so fast, my jewellery-encrusted friend. The Petrucci Music Library has been up and running for over three years, and can now offer the small matter of 17,421 works and 37,157 scores, all of which are searchable by composer name, time period, genre or instrumentation. This means, and I'm sure you're ahead of me here, that musicians now have access to scores (downloadable as PDF files) from just about any century in the Western calendar that has four figures in it. If you ever fancied exploring the Renaissance repertoire, now's your chance. Tallis's Spem in Alium, Bach cantatas, Haydn string quartets, obscure atonal claptrap* from obscure 20th century composers - they're all here, many of them with the separate instrument parts as well as the full score.

Three concerns strike you. Is this Petrucci Library thing legal? Is it useful? Won't it harm music publishers? It's time for some small print:

"As the IMSLP servers are physically hosted in Canada, IMSLP has to follow the Canadian Copyright Law. All scores submitted to IMSLP either belong to the public domain, or permission has been granted by the holder of the copyrights so that the files can be submitted to IMSLP (as is the case of contemporary composers who wish to have their works submitted to IMSLP). In other words, being legal is the point of IMSLP, and all of its content that is accessible is legally available in the U.S. and Canada. Anything not allowed in the EU is clearly marked as such."

Remember, it's your responsibilty to check a score (ISMLP has assigned a helpful copyright review code to each) to see whether it is public domain in your country, be it in Europe or the rest of the world. Fortunately, the Petrucci Music Library is actually a huge Wiki-page (as in Wikipedia) so it's easy to find the relevant information. Most major 20th composers are still under copyright; the only stuff you'll find from that era are scores released under a CC licence. Don't expect to see Shostakovich or Bernstein. The IMSLP forums are happy to help with any inquiries.

As for its usefulness - ask any musician who would like to play some of the classical repertoire's warhorses or, better still, investigate some dusty sonata, string quartet or vocal piece. It sounds like a superb way of rejuvenating some hitherto ignored works. This must be a good thing, surely?

Now, the tricky bit. Won't free access to scores damage publishers' incomes? Well, it's important to remember that, depending on the regional and legal circumstances, these scores are free for anyone to download and use. It's one of those grey areas that the internet has created. Just as I can't stop someone releasing their three-hour long Creative Commons album of electronic drones and cat genitorture, music publishers can't (yet) deny access to scores that have fallen out of copyright. The cat is out of the bag (and looking somewhat frazzled). Some of these scores are so obscure that publishers would lose money if they were to release a professionally bound edition. However, many musicians, given the choice, would also like to own a properly edited and produced copy of, say, Beethoven's piano sonatas. I like to think that there's room for both approaches. In fact, I've made room for this excellent website in the CTW sidebar under "General Netlabel Sites". Trust me, it's better than a Nobel.

One small but vital point: the Petrucci Music Library has, wherever possible, placed a link to Amazon on a relevant score's Wikipage. Wonderfully, this means that the user is pointed to a variety of commercial recordings and scores, and is thus tempted to splash some cash, a particularly good thing when dealing with lesser-known works. Who knows, the IMSLP might even be responsible for increasing the sales of some CDs and scores. This is undoubtedly another example of the internet being the best thing since man found an amusing use for grapes and hops. And no, that's not another hip-hop genre. Please consider pressing the IMSLP "Donate" button if you feel the same.

To finish, some music. (Yes, I know. I'll try to review some albums in the near future.) Here's Artur Schnabel in 1935 storming through the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.21, the Waldstein:

Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 21 (Waldstein): Allegro con brio...and here's the score page at the Petrucci Music Library.

International Music Score Library Project/Petrucci Music Library

* I said that out of sheer devilry. I'm fond of atonal claptrap - in small doses.

Yes, I'm Buff

Photo: Lewis Hine (1920) 

Just a quick note to say that Choc, the talented but naughty French electronica artist, made some extensive changes to the two of his albums reviewed here at CTW, which resulted in my links going haywire and other assorted nastiness. You'll be glad to hear that I fearlessly donned my dungarees and tinkered about; all has now been resolved. My apologies for any inconvenience and confusion. Fortunately, the backstage swearing and screaming repairs have presented an opportunity to remind CTW's readers that Choc has made some beautiful electronica. Have a look for yourself:

Choc - Sound Object Deconditioning

Choc - Urban Solstice

To answer your questions:

1. Yes, I am that toned. Especially my beer belly.

2. Another review is *gasp* imminent. Well, I say imminent. What I really mean is: it might crawl on to the net tomorrow if I can be bothered to twiddle my forefinger and depress the return key in an Oliver Hardy styleee.

Chocaholic

 

EDIT 15/02/09: Choc, that impish Frenchman, decided to give his album a new cover picture and change his song titles. This resulted, through the magic of the internet, in Jamendo's mp3 player linking to a completely different album by a completely different artist. I've amended my review accordingly. Apologies for the confusion caused to CTW's already addled readers. I think Choc caused my wonderful, peerless website all this trouble because Britain refuses to adopt the Euro, dress well, eat decent food and have civilised working hours. C'est la vie. (By the way, I didn't crop the album's title on the photo of a woman enjoying the glamour of modern travel. It seems that it's not a Choc album unless there's a typo somewhere. Zut alors, mon ami!)

CTW's next selection was going to be something funky and sassy just so I could thumb my nose at Beethoven but fate had other plans. A recent article by Joe Queenan in The Guardian, "Admit It, You're As Bored As I Am", lamenting new classical music, and Tom Service's response, the Douglas Adams-tinged* "Why Joe Queenan Is Wrong About New Classical Music", got me thinking about the state of modern classical music. I love Nixon in China by John Adams and some stuff by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Philip Glass, but my personal filter tends to stop most "classical" stuff written after the 1960s. Mea culpa.

I'd love to know what music journalists, academics and everyday music fans think of Sound Object Deconditioning. In my humble opinion, Choc's five-track EP combines piano and strings with glitchy percussion, ambient noises and stuttering edits to produce an enthralling listen. Each track could bear the term "composition". That doesn't mean they're boring - listening to them is like being captivated by something beautiful. Pretend you're Nicolas Sarkozy. Heh.

The new (see start of review) song titles are less unweidly than before, although they still don't trip off the tongue. But who cares? It's the music that matters, and this collection of clear-headed, melodically strong ambient-ish electronica is entertaining enough to overcome mere words such as Eigenvalue Subspace Decomposition, Mimesis Algorithm, Final Breath, Digital Requiem, and Zion City. Mimesis Algorithm, which I've already raved about, is a slight retooling of its earlier version; it's still excellent although I'm not sure about the new guitar part. I suppose we all prefer our first kiss.

[Et Voila! Now with whiter-than-white Jamendo player. Listen to the first two - two, not one - minutes of track 1, Eigenvalue Subspace Decomposition, and see if it tickles your fancy. Please note (15/02/09), this album has just been reloaded at Jamendo so you may have to wait until the 16th Feb before it's ready for downloading.]

So, can we call this music serious, art or classical? "Art music" and "serious music" are specious terms, in my opinion. Strictly speaking, the term "classical" applies to music written between 1730 and 1820; Mahler, Stravinsky and the like are labelled classical for the sake of convenience. What to call this stuff? It's good modern music. What more need be said?

...er, nothing really, except: Choc's album is a free Creative Commons release, but please think about donating something, however massive small, so as to say thank you and to encourage him to keep producing music of this quality. The noble Jamendo website makes it easy to donate via the album's release page.

Choc - Sound Object Deconditioning (link to zipped album and individual mp3s)

Jamendo (repository for over 14,000 free Creative Commons albums)

*as in: "Not only is (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) a wholly remarkable book, it is...more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?"

Open Sesame

With the advent of the high-minded One Laptop Per Child project and the high-to-middling-minded EEE PC laptop, the internet is slowly, finally, becoming available to those who need it most: the neediest. Despite horror stories about fraud, pornography, spamming and surveillance, the vast army of workers at Catching The Waves believes that the internet can be a force for good and that it can enrich the lives and minds of those thirsty for education and opportunities. The tenured fellows of CTW's ivy-strewn quadrangle (typical dress: mortar boards, gowns and damp tweed) have found yet another reason to reinforce that belief: Musopen.

Musopen is intended to be a repository of public domain classical music. Although composers such as Shostakovich and Prokofiev are still under copyright (and will remain so if the parties involved are allowed to keep extending that copyright), giants such as Bach, Beethoven and Chopin are now gamboling in the green pastures of public domain. This means that anyone can perform their works and distribute recordings of those performances for free without breaking any laws or infringing on someone's intellectual copyright - until the powers that be think of new laws to stop it. Give it time...

Anyway, Musopen now offers a recording of all 32 of Beethoven's piano sonatas that can be listened to via streaming or downloaded for free and stored on your hard drive/mp3 player. There are also quite a few pieces by Mozart, Bach, Brahms and others, searchable by composer, performer, instrument, period and form, with biographies and a brief description of each work on offer. Musopen's random streaming radio option is an excellent way to prick up one's ears.

Just as impressive is the fact that Musopen also provides public domain sheet music, which scrolls on-screen as the music plays, for all the available compositions. The scores can be downloaded as a pdf file. Cash-strapped music teachers and students will jump for joy at this news.

It's still early days for Musopen due to the sheer size of the task. What to choose? How to decide which works to record? Ingeniously, the site has a bidding system so people can donate towards the costs of recording a favourite piece. Once the budget is there, a recording is commissioned. At the moment, Bach's Goldberg Variations has raised a third of its budget - and someone's a fan of Scarlatti's Sonata in F Sharp Minor. General donations are very welcome, too.

Inevitably, the performances and recordings are not as accomplished as those provided by the major record labels but they do provide a convenient starting point from which to explore the classical canon. With a bit of luck, newbies who find a piece they like might then go on to buy a recording by Naxos or Deutsche Grammophon and attend concerts - and therefore, glory be, Musopen's provision of free classical music could help the beleaguered recording industry. Far more importantly, the website now has a link in Catching The Wave's hallowed "General Netlabel Sites" section. Better than an Olympic gold medal, I tell you.

Isn't it wonderful that a child or student on any continent can travel back in time and hear a grumpy German or a bibulous Austrian or a melancholy Pole plonk up and down a piano keyboard?

Isn't it, kids?

*taps screen*

Kids?

Damn. They're all listening to Dizzee Rascal and watching re-runs of Family Guy. Two hundred years and Wolfie still can't get a break.

Musopen