Proceedings Music

This issue comprises the twenty-five papers presented at the Second Music and the Cognitive Sciences conference held at Cambridge University

This recording marks the beginning of a new series devoted to previously unrecorded chamber works by the Danish composer Vagn Holmboe (1909-96). The music was written from the 1950s to the 1980s and ranges wide, all the way from the playful to the serious. Holmboe's inexhaustible wealth of ideas and his mixture of lightness and ingenuity run through all the works. As does his 'metamorphosis' technique, which makes the music breathe and grow like the Nordic landscape of which Holmboe felt himself to be a part.

Since the film was first screened ECM has been deluged with requests for a soundtrack album, so we are making this available simultaneously. Where the film shows the process of music-making, "Sounds and Silence: Music for a Film" includes the music in its completed/produced form. There are two exciting exceptions - tracks from Eleni Karaindrou and orchestra live in concert in Frankfurt with Jan Garbarek and Kim Kashkashian as guests - these pieces have not previously been available on CD.

Lovers of the Spanish Baroque may be surprised to see the subtitle "17th-century violin music in Spain" here, inasmuch as non-keyboard instrumental chamber music following Italian models has never surfaced before. Indeed, the booklet transmits statements by writers of the time bemoaning the lack of such violin music. What's happening here is that Spanish historical-instrument group La Real Cámara and its director-violinist Emilio Moreno have hypothesized that Spanish organ music might have been arranged for other instruments in the same way Italian music certainly was; Girolamo Frescobaldi specifically attested to this. The evidence for the practice in Spain is pretty slim, consisting mostly of the fact that violins (known by the intriguing alternate names biolino, rabele, rabelejo, or rebequino) existed there, and Moreno freely concedes his music represents an "optimistic" answer to the question of whether there was Spanish Baroque violin music. The musical results of his speculation, though, are pretty convincing. The basic contrast between tientos (contrapuntal pieces comparable in form and meaning to the Italian ricercar, the word means "tests") and batallas, or battle pieces, is one that isn't heard much elsehwere, for the representation of battles, though not unknown in Italy, wasn't especially common.

Critical favorites Music Machine are one of the most underappreciated legends of Garage Rock. This L.A. rock quintet had their biggest hit in 1966 with "Talk Talk", which rose to #15 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. This CD is a real treat. It contains some of the best nuggets of the Psychedelic era.