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69.143.200.205
I first heard this piece about 3 years ago and couldn't forget it. I now got it on CD and it still works its magic.
Bryars' approach is a long-form, semi-abstract sound 'poem' based around the old hymn 'Autumn' which, arguably, was the last piece played by the band before the ship went down. Mixed with sound effects, choir and voices, it runs (I think) about 35-40mins. The hymn comes back again and again, with variations.
His idea seems to be a comment both on the disaster and of the end of that era, based on the concept that the music and sounds didn't die, but continued to echo as the ship sank, existing in some other realm, forever haunting the listener.
Taken at a dirge-like pace, the piece should bore you, but I find each time I have put it on for just a 'quick listen' I wind up going through the whole thing again. It sneaks into your head and really forces you to pay attention.
The closing, very long 'amen' phrase is terribly moving within the context of the piece.
Anyone like/dislike this piece; any comments?
Cosmic
even though I rarely play it.
There are all sorts of music and I find some works to be solitary works, best listened to alone when one has the time to give the music full attention, and other works to be more social, able to be listened to in company, or when doing other things, and still appreciated greatly even if not as much as one appreciates them when one gives them one's full attention. "The Sinking of the Titanic" is a solitary work, as is Bryars' "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". Both are slowly paced and slowly unfolding which are major reasons why they demand undivided attention for their appreciation, and both yield much more pleasure than one expects when one gives them that attention.
David Aiken
David,
I fully agree. One of those you really savor, but don't put on for just casual listening.
C.
I haven't purchased my own copy of the disc - but not because I didn't love it. I haven't purchased it because the context in which I heard it was so perfect I've wanted it to remain only in memory. I think you stated it very well - it's a piece about the echo and haunt of sources no longer present, and that's sort of how I want that day to remain. So I will probably never buy the disc - it would seem like a paltry attempt to recreate an extraordinary day and I'm sure it would fail. It's a piece I will never forget, and there are only a handful of pieces I can say that about. High, and wholly subjective, praise.I do have a couple of other of his works on disc. Someone mentioned 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet' which is quite good, I know, but which I don't love. I also have a copy of some segments from 'Man In A Room, Gambling'. That's an astonishing work - if there's another work like it, I'd very much like to know. 'Man in a Room, Gambling', too, is designed to create otherworldly spaces and succeeds in ways I can't attribute to other composers.
Thanks for kicking off a great thread. Bryars is special.
-----------
It's not I'm anti-social,
I'm only anti-work,
Glory Osky, that's why I'm a jerk!
Zero,
Your memories speak for themselves; whatever the circumstances, it must have been amazing. Thanks for chiming in on a piece I didn't know how many had sat down to listen to.
C.
"Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet"...
I met Gavin at Derek Bailey's Company Week in 1987. He was teaching university level classical composition. Derek, Gavin, Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, Barry Guy, Tony Oxley....... came out of the '50's English dance hall orchestra stream and went in some highly personal and unique directions.
History has yet to judge them accurately and completely. They influenced many: Zorn, Braxton, Frith, Kaiser, Chadbourne, Holland.....
Thanks for the reminder. This is music of great substance and emotion.
... to include the genius of Tom Waits on vocal but for me it diluted the concept. Personally I find it too minimalist for my taste anyway but the vocal loop of the original tape capturing the homeless guy singing is incredibly powerful, in a tragic sense.
afilado,
Thank you for a history lesson, mentioning a school of people I didn't know, and for enlightening me on Gavin's background.
Dancehall?? That would have been my last guess for someone who wrote this, but hey :-) If you have any further stories on the man, by all means...
C.
....Derek Bailey far better than any of the others, including Gavin.
I met Derek in the middle '80's when we - a partner and I - were introduced by Davey Williams (Trans Duo. Curlew; actually Davey also played with Johnny Shines!). We invited Derek to play at a festival we produced at Howard Finster's Paradise Garden.
Sorry to throw all this stuff at you but these are very interesting artists/musicians. Also I'm hesitant to go into repetitive detail because I've said a good bit about this here before.
Derek came to the US to play for us and in turn issued an invitation to Company Week in London. It was there that we met Gavin, Coxhill, Steve Beresford, Han Bennick and so many others of that free improvising community. Derek is the one who told the tales about how as young men they earned a living as players in the post war dance halls. Of course, their more serious interests paid them nothing or little.
We worked with Derek and literally hundreds of the others from Europe and the US, also Japan, Africa, and Tibet of all places, for all those years up to his death. The work still goes on but I left concert production in late '90's.
Gavin was known to me as a free improviser first. It was later that I learned of his deeper "classical" work. He was a quiet, gentlemanly person who showed no flash in his manner in any respect that I saw.
Their music astonished me. Very out stuff. Truly NEW music. As I said their work is still to be fully understood and placed in its qualitative historical context. There are some giants among them.
You will be surprised at many of the modern players - jazz, rock, you name it - who point to this realm of players as influence and inspiration.
I'd love to share more if you like. Feel free to contact me directly.
It's been a few years since I've listened to that amazingly nuanced piece, but remember it as VERY effective in transporting me to a dire, haunting place that somehow resolves with a sense of... contentment, or acceptance.
I like it and may be ready to dig it out and be transported again.
"...You're all welcome to stay for the next set...we're going to play all the same tunes, but in different keys..." -Count Basie
At the back of my mind there is an echo of a Charles Ives piece occasioned by the sinking of the Lusitania. I can hear the hymn it closes with, but can't put a name on either the hymn or the work.
It will come to me...
JM
If you come up with it, please post. I'd love to hear it.
C.
Cosmic Closet,
The Ives work evocative of the grief surrounding the Lusitania sinking is called, "From Hanover Square North, at the End of a Tragic Day, the Voice of the People Again Arose".
The story is that Ives was going home from work - he worked in insurance- he saw a group of people on the train platform, mourning the loss of the Lusitania, who began singing a hymn, and Ives built on that image.
A very evocative piece and Ives weaves both the tension and serenity of grief in that wonderful inventive way.
Cheers,
Bambi B
That's the third and last movement of Ives Orchesral Set No.2
The hymn was "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," played on a barrel organ.
IIRC, Ives put it in a minor key or a mode for his setting.
Haunting.
Michael Tilson Thomas' version is stunning, and, a great (Calrec Soundfield) recording.
Ciao,
JM
Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Yes, "Autumn" is more likely than "Nearer My God to Thee," which is a bit of a canard.
In Symphony Hall Boston on the wall of the East Corridor there is a memorial to the musicians of the RMS Titanic.
JM
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