Alvin Curran, “Crystal Psalms”

 

“On October 20, 1988, a large part of western Europe heard a unique radio concert — CRYSTAL PSALMS — a concerto for musicians in six nations, simultaneously performed, mixed and broadcast live in stereo to listeners from Palermo to Helsinki. 

This special event, composed and coordinated by myself, while part of a worldwide series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the infamous Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), was, through its unusual concept, one which demanded and demonstrated an exceptional quality of international artistic and technological collaboration — the bringing together groups of musicians and technicians (some 300 in all, in six major European cities) who neither saw nor heard one another, yet performed as one unified ensemble to realize this complex score.” 

 

text from artist web page: http://www.alvincurran.com/ 

CrystalPsalmshiMP3excerpt.mp3

Crystal%20Psalms%20part%202.mp3

See Also:

Composer’s notes on the piece:

http://www.alvincurran.com/writings/CrystalPsalmsnotes.html

http://www.newalbion.com/NA_CDS/NA067/NA067.htm

Steve Reich, “Different Trains” (1988)

Different Trains, released in 1989, captures Reich harnessing a return to using speech patterns in his work, as in ‘Rain,’ with a spare though startling string accompaniment in the form of the Kronos Quartet. The ‘Different Trains’ theme originates from Reich’s childhood, several wartime years spent travelling with his governess between his estranged parents, his mother in Los Angeles and his father in New York. Exciting, romantic trips, full of adventure for the young Reich but many years later, it dawned on him that, had he been in Germany during the ethnic cleansing by the Nazis, his Jewish background would have ensured that the trains he would have been riding on would have been very ‘different trains.’ He set about collecting recordings to effectively recreate and document the atmosphere of his travels to contrast with those of the unfortunate refugees. By combining the sound of train whistles, pistons and the scream of brakes with extracts of speech by porter Lawrence Davis, who took the same rides as Reich between the big apple and Los Angeles, governess Virginia and three holocaust survivors (Paul, Rachel and Rachella), Reich creates music of great intensity and feeling. The rhythmic patterns and pitch of the voices establishes the phrases and course of the music heard in the quartet: ‘crack train from New York,’ and ‘1939’ for example, heard in the invigorating, steam-driven opening movement, America-Before The War. The slow, middle section, Europe-During The War, finds the refugees in the midst of their nightmare, ‘no more school’ and being herded into the cattle wagons. ‘They shaved us, They tatooed a number on our arm, Flames going up to the sky- it was smoking.’ Sirens from the Kronos help to convey the despair and confusion of the Jewish plight. Reconciliation is achieved in part three, After The War, where Paul, Rachel and Rachella are transported to live in America. There is an incredibly poignant moment when Paul proclaims ‘the war was over,’ Rachella, in sheer, fragile disbelief, asks ‘Are you sure?.’

Melissa Gould

Still Life: Anne Frank Memorial Pencils (1988)

Floor Plan (1991)

“Notes From Underground,” by  Alvin Curran.  You can hear an excerpt here: http://www.alvincurran.com/NotesFromUndergroundhiMP3excerpt.mp3

From Adler to Zybler (1992)

“FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER (literally, “from eagle to silver”), “an alphabetic cosmology of the dead,” is an invented lexicon of obituary pictograms based on German-Jewish names taken from an Auschwitz transport list.

The original document inspiring this project is the 1000-name transport list of Convoy #42 (6 November 1942; France to Auschwitz), which I accidentally found in Memorial to the Jews Deported from France 1942-1944 by Serge Klarsfeld. My grandfather was among 1,000 Jews from all over Europe on this particular train, many of whom had sought refuge in what had been unoccupied France.

FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER is a symbolic continuation of Convoy #42’s journey.

From this transport list I originally selected 100 German-Jewish names with meanings referring to elements in the natural world. Each name is represented by a visual interpretation in the form of a pictogram–pairing the name, written in Gothic script, with a number and a different associative image. The images were taken from pre-War sources of European popular culture–lexicons, school- and text-books, fairy-tales, children’s books and other printed ephemera, then collaged together and sometimes slightly altered by drawing. This mixture of elements is contained by a black border (reminiscent of a death notice) and a thin outer edge of white. Each pictogram, photocopied onto white paper, measures 36″ by 36″ square. I now present this project as a 36-pictogram installation scaled down from the original 100 (36 is a multiple of 18; in the Hebrew alphabet the number 18 is equivalent to the word chai, meaning life).

The title FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER refers not only to the first and last names chosen from the transport list of Convoy #42 but also describes the system by which the pictograms are arranged within a given space. They mimic the order of nature–Adler (eagle) is hung high above, Zylber (silver) nearest the ground, and so on.

FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER is an ongoing project having many variants. The open-ended FROM ADLER TO ZYLBER cycle is a clue-filled rebus seeking to tell a story without words “illustrating” the tragic fate of the European Jews. I consider the pictograms as gravestones for people who had no funerals.”

Schadenfreude: an Installation (1995)

“SCHADENFREUDE 

explored anti-Semitism by way of a “Nazi wallpaper showroom.” (Schadenfreude is a German word meaning the delight one gets from someone else’s misfortune.) Using illustrations taken from one 1935 German Brockhaus dictionary I created six wallpaper patterns through combining and slightly altering the illustrations by drawing on them. While the designs may seem innocuous at first glance, their more tragic and ironic implications (as seen from the historical perspective of more than 60 years) are revealed with longer viewing. The motifs were first enlarged as photocopies, and then produced as silkscreened wallpaper which I ultimately arranged into a 1600-square-foot three-room installation at the Imperial War Museum, London, (1995).” >/p>

All text and images from artists web page. Online at:

http://www.megophone.com/projects.html