AFMM/Flux Qt., 3.8.2003

Just a quick note:

I lucky to get into town last Saturday to catch the Flux
String Quartet polish off a few works at Washington Square Church.

Julian Carrillo, 2 Bosquejos: old melodies slide out of control by eighth
tones.

Ben Johnston, String Qt. #5: Kronos passed on his one, Flux
brought out an amazing cloud of 13 limit JI.

Johnny Reinhard, Trespass: 17 limit JI, all the intervals use 17. As usual
with Johnny's pieces, there's a bit of theatre involved. The first violinist
approaches the stage after the piece begins - trespassing on the other
players. All 17 is a beautiful tuning, the 17th harmonic and those
mysterious
neutral thirds.

Giscinto Scelsi, String Quartet No. 5: more equal temperament fun, 96tet I
think.
I kinda missed out on this one, after having a conversation during
intermission,
I was making notes. Before I knew what happened, the Scelsi was over.

Charles Ives, String Quartet No. 2: although I really liked the AFMM version
The Unanswered Question that was performed a few years ago, I'm not a big
fan of Ives.
Performing the 2nd String Qt. in Ives' extended Pythagorean tuning really
brought the
work to life.

A great concert, I liked the Johnston and Reinhard the best. A nice crowd
too,
an appearance by JR on WNYCs New Sounds the previous evening probably
helped.

http://wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/03072003

* David Beardsley
* microtonal guitar
* http://biink.com/db