The Advanced Materials Revolution And The Japanese System of Innovation

The Doors returned to crunching, straightforward hard rock on Morrison Hotel, an album that, despite yielding no major hit singles, returned them to critical favor with hip listeners. An increasingly bluesy flavor began to color the songwriting and arrangements, especially on the party'n'booze anthem "Roadhouse Blues."…

Jon Anderson's first project following his departure from Yes was to reunite with the equally airy Vangelis for a collaborative effort as Jon and Vangelis. Short Stories actually marks their second collaboration – the first took place on Vangelis' 1975 album, Heaven and Hell, with the track "So Long Ago, So Clear." The pair returns to that song's successful formula of combining Anderson's otherworldly voice with Vangelis' pithy melodies in a few spots on their debut together, notably for the popular single "I Hear You Now" (which recalls Vangelis' "To the Unknown Man") and the middle section of "Far Away in Bagaad." Otherwise, Short Stories favors amorphous arrangements that feature wisps of melody and little more (a style that has its precedent on Yes' Tormato rather than their own solo work to date).

Composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is one of the leading names in today's contemporary music. This album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra together with it's chief conductor Hannu Lintu includes three works by the composer, including Aura, one of the most prominent monumental orchestral works of our era, together with two other works completed in the 1990s, including Marea and the first recording of Related Rocks. Aura - in memoriam Witold Lutoslawski represents a grand synthesis of Magnus Lindberg's output in the 1990s. The work was written in 1993-1994 to a commission from Suntory Limited in Japan and was premiered by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra under Kazufumi Yamashita at Suntory Hall in Tokyo in June 1994. Clocking in at 40 minutes, Aura is Lindberg's most extensive orchestral work. Although not a symphony, this 4-movement work is closely linked to the symphonic concept represented by Lutoslawski. The composer heard of Lutoslawski's death while writing the work and decided to dedicate it to his memory.

Born in Bergamo, Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) wrote string quartets, 18 in all. While this output may be dwarfed by the 65 or so operas he composed, that they exist at all may be a surprise. Mostly written in his youth while he was waiting for his first opera commission, the surest way to fame and fortune for a young composer, they exhibit the promise that he was later to fulfill in the opera house.

The Doors returned to crunching, straightforward hard rock on Morrison Hotel, an album that, despite yielding no major hit singles, returned them to critical favor with hip listeners. An increasingly bluesy flavor began to color the songwriting and arrangements, especially on the party'n'booze anthem "Roadhouse Blues." Airy mysticism was still present on "Waiting for the Sun," "Queen of the Highway," and "Indian Summer"; "Ship of Fools" and "Land Ho!" struck effective balances between the hard rock arrangements and the narrative reach of the lyrics. "Peace Frog" was the most political and controversial track, documenting the domestic unrest of late-'60s America before unexpectedly segueing into the restful ballad "Blue Sunday." "The Spy," by contrast, was a slow blues that pointed to the direction that would fully blossom on L.A. Woman.