Haydn by Cloudland Blue Quartet
Along with my previous works based on the music of Satie, Cage, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, I had long wanted to create an album around the music of Joseph Haydn but the inspiration for these recordings came, initially, from the music of Steve Reich.
My original idea was to take short phrases from a piano piece, a string quartet and a symphony and, for each, to phase them by manipulating the tempi across five or six loops of the same piece, positioning them across the stereo spectrum.
You can get an idea of how this might have sounded by listening to the first versions of each piece, available to you if you download the album.
On listening back the other day to all four hours of the work presented here, I realised that, while the piano piece remained almost the same across the three versions included in the download bundle, you can hear how I honed the first and third pieces down to a more "ambient" than "phased" result.
I will freely admit that I found the first version of the first piece almost unlistenable.
You should note that I do not necessarily deem that a bad outcome!
Across the three pieces, I also utilised a 54 minute field recording, made in Dresden on 19 June 2019, which includes intriguing conversations from passers by.
I hold the final versions of the first and third pieces on this LP to be among some of the best ambient works I've created over the last 44 years.
I hope you enjoy all three of these new works - on headphones, with the lights out, of course!
David Reilly
Edinburgh
30 June 2021
Tracklist
| 1. | Esterházy | 18:07 |
| 2. | Schröter | 17:29 |
| 3. | 4 May, 1795 | 26:23 |
Credits
"Haydn" is the 27th soundscapes album from Cloudland Blue Quartet (Crispycat 2107 - 2 July 2021)
Composed by David Reilly after Joseph Haydn
Treatments, editing, sound manipulation, field recording, short wave radio (Esterházy remix), guitar ("Sample from "Stumbling Block" from the Cloudland Blue Quartet album "Disquietmusik III" (2019) (Esterházy remix), hesitant rhythm bed (Esterházy remix), cover ("Red Haydn", 1 May 2021) and production by David Reilly for Crispycat Recordings.
"Esterházy" is based a short edit of Haydn's String Quartet In B Flat, Op. 1/1, "La Chasse", 3rd Movement, Adagio
"Schröter" is based a short edit of Haydn's Klaviersonate Es-Dur Hob XVI:52, 2nd movement, Adagio
"4 May, 1795" is based a short edit of Haydn's Symphony No.104 in D major "London", 1st Movement Adagio - Allegro
For best results, please listen on headphones.
Recorded at Crispycat Studio, Edinburgh, UK, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 May, 16 June, 1 July 2021 (Field Recording made in Dresden, 19 June, 2019)
(p) 2021 Crispycat Recordings © David Reilly 2021
Executive Producer : Anne Reilly
Bonus Material 237:36 (Download Only)
Disc 2
Esterházy (1st Version) 24:15
Schröter (1st Version) 23:29
4 May, 1795 (1st Version) 20:01
Disc 3
Schröter (2nd Version) 22:09
4 May, 1795 (2nd Version) 21:21
Schröter (3rd Version) 19:16
Disc 4
4 May, 1795 (3rd Version) 24:35
Esterházy/Schröter/4 May, 1795 (Medley) 9:57
Esterházy (Apollo Seventeen Stumbling Block Mix) 18:09
Disc 5
Dresden Field Recording, 19 June, 2019 54:26
License
All rights reserved.
A quartet in name only, initially influenced by Fripp & Eno's "No Pussyfooting" and The Velvet Underground's debut, songwriter & soundscaper David Reilly started musicking in 1977 by creating drones using sellotape on the keys of his dad's Bontempi Organ. The subsequent junk shop purchases of an electric guitar & fuzzbox and the acquisition of an old Beatles songbook, led him into songwriting...