Alarm Will Sound a/rhythmia

1. “Jitterbug mécanique” from Animals and the Origins of Dance (1992) (1:41) 8. Study No. 6 for Player Piano (c. 1950) (3:51) Benedict Mason (born 1954, England) (born 1927, United States; died 1997, Mexico) Published by Chester Music Ltd. arr. Yvar Mikhashoff

2. Yo Shakespeare (1992) (11:23) 9. Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum (1978) (9:08) Michael Gordon (born 1956, United States) (born 1934, England) Published by Red Poppy Music/G. Schirmer, Inc. Published by Boosey & Hawkes

3. “Camoufl ages des Agréments” from Animals… (1992) (1:41) 10. “Dégringolade des Pingouins” from Animals… (1992) (1:45) Benedict Mason (born 1954, England) Benedict Mason (born 1954, England) Published by Chester Music Ltd. Published by Chester Music Ltd.

4. “Movimento preciso e meccanico” from Chamber Concerto (1969-70) (3:59) 11. “Agnus Dei II” from Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales (late 15th century) (1:57) György Ligeti (born 1923, Romania; died 2006, Austria) Josquin des Prez (born c. 1450-55, died 1521, France) Published by Schott Music arr. Payton MacDonald

5. Dessert Search for Techno Baklava (2002) (3:00) 12. Cfern (2001) (5:52) David Wong, a.k.a. Mochipet (born 1975, Taiwan) Rob Brown and Sean Booth, a.k.a. (born 1971 and 1973, England) arr. Stefan Freund arr. Dennis DeSantis Published by Botan Music (ASCAP) Payton MacDonald, drumset

6. Le Ray Au Soleyl (late 14th century) (2:55) Johannes Ciconia (born c. 1370, Belgium; died 1412, Italy) 13. “Disgraceful Bossanova with Lemurs” from Animals… (1992) (1:39) arr. Gavin Chuck Benedict Mason (born 1954, England) Published by Chester Music Ltd.

7. “Highland Balls and Village Halls” from Animals… (1992) (1:41) Benedict Mason (born 1954, England) 14. Study No. 3A for Player Piano (1948) (5:39) Published by Chester Music Ltd. Conlon Nancarrow (born 1927, United States; died 1997, Mexico) arr. Derek Bermel Arrhythmia

“want of rhythm or regularity, specifi cally of the pulse.”

In all of the music on this album, which spans six proving that (at least some of) his studies are that juxtaposes two alternating tempos, keeping juxtaposition of independent tempos—intended to centuries and numerous styles, there is a basic actually playable by people. Study No. 3A (1948), the whole mechanism continuously off-kilter. evoke the ticking of clocks—explains the sense of pulse that is disturbed either by distortions in the from Nancarrow’s Boogie-Woogie Suite, was his familiarity and resonance he would later experience fl ow of time (like a record player with an unsteady fi rst player piano composition, and the joy that When György Ligeti fi rst encountered Nancarrow’s on encountering Nancarrow’s work. motor) or by juxtaposition with other confl icting Nancarrow must have felt at being liberated from music in 1980, he declared it “the best music of any pulses (like turn signals fl ashing at different the limitations of performers seems expressed in composer living today.” Nancarrow was still largely The English avant-garde scene that Harrison speeds at a stoplight). We’ve found this sort of its manic exuberance and in the spontaneity with unknown at the time, and Ligeti’s enthusiasm Birtwistle grew up in was quite different from rhythm—where regularity and irregularity meet— which it spins out new ideas. The piece is built became a major factor in its popularization. The the serialism-dominated environment of Ligeti’s to be uniquely engaging: the underlying pulse over an ordinary, endlessly-repeating, 12-bar mathematical complexities that Ligeti found in Vienna. Without that backdrop of serialist catches the ear and provides a context for all blues bass line, with each cycle becoming the this music resonated with the highly ordered ideology, Birtwistle’s embrace of pulse-driven these disturbances, whose complexity keeps the foundation for new melodic and rhythmic ideas. serialism then dominant in the European avant- music and dancing rhythms in Carmen Arcadiae listener alert and guessing. The “want of rhythm At fi rst, the music is relatively conventional, but garde, but the foundation of Nancarrow’s music Mechanicae Perpetuum (1978) isn’t iconoclastic or regularity” becomes palpable. as the bass line cycles on, Nancarrow’s melodies is in perceptible pulse and meter, which were in the way that Ligeti’s was. Birtwistle’s modernism free themselves from its grip and take off in their taboo in that tradition. Although Ligeti was a major follows the tradition of Stravinsky (rather than own tempos and meters. In its fi nal cycles, the fi gure in this scene, he had long taken a skeptical Schoenberg), and the work’s stark juxtaposition of piece fi xates on the bass line itself, with layers of eye toward its orthodoxies, writing an article that “musical mechanisms” has a distinctly Stravinsky- upper voices repeating it at confl icting speeds. compared serial music to the “uniform grey” mass an fl avor. As in Ligeti’s “Movimento preciso e Conlon Nancarrow is an obvious starting point for The resulting rhythmic whirlwind, heard here in created from over-kneading many colors of Play- meccanico,” Birtwistle evokes pulsation as an any program of “arrhythmia.” He built his career Derek Bermel’s virtuosic arrangement for Alarm Doh, and alluding to the pulse-driven work of Steve allusion to machines: this is the imagined song of writing music that juxtaposes and layers simple Will Sound, is the most rhythmically challenging Reich and Terry Riley in his 1978 Three Pieces for a mechanical bird. jazz and blues riffs in the wildest ways imaginable, music we’ve ever performed. Two Pianos. Ligeti’s embrace of Nancarrow’s music and his example has given numerous composers had a major impact on both composers: Ligeti’s ways to think about generating complexity without Nancarrow’s Study No. 6 (c. 1950) draws its advocacy helped win Nancarrow a MacArthur sacrifi cing the familiar landmarks provided by material from Spanish music. As with much of the “genius” award as well as his fi rst commissions straight-ahead pulsation. Although Nancarrow music on this album, its basic materials—a bass to compose for live musicians, while Nancarrow’s started out composing for human performers, line and a single melody—are remarkably simple; ideas transformed Ligeti’s music, ushering in The composer Michael Gordon identifi es with his frustrations with their rhythmic limitations it’s the tempo relationships that make the music a new period fi lled with dancing rhythms in Nancarrow as a fellow member of the “outlaw led him to devote nearly forty years to the player complex. While the bass line sounds like a simple contradictory meters. Though the “Movimento tradition,” Gordon’s term for the distinctly piano. Half a century later, Alarm Will Sound and ostinato, it isn’t: its pitches repeat regularly, but the preciso e meccanico” movement of his Chamber American model of a composer working outside other fans of Nancarrow’s music have set about rhythms are dictated by an independent process Concerto (1969-70) was actually written before of conventional institutions and developing music Ligeti’s encounter with Nancarrow, its obsessive free from established traditions. Gordon shares with Alarm Will Sound a love for the kind of rhythm Even more than Michael Gordon, the English the element of unpredictability and irregularity of us in Alarm Will Sound have found ourselves at the heart of a/rhythmia: “rhythm that energizes composer Benedict Mason entered the world of that is common to all of the music on this album. observing scenes in the day-to-day world that you and makes you want to move, but at the concert music from the outside, having initially Mochipet is associated with breakcore, a sub- recall the “arrhythmia” we’ve been creating: a same time is complex.” His work fi xates on the worked as a fi lmmaker. Animals and the Origins genre of IDM characterized by complexity, density, skipping record, music blaring from two passing same sort of rhythmic juxtapositions that energize of Dance (1992) is a set of twelve miniature dance and extreme velocity. Dessert Search for Techno cars, the multitude of strides on a crowded Nancarrow’s music, but his major infl uence has movements, each precisely ninety seconds long. Baklava (2002) is created from an Arabic tune that sidewalk, confl icting beeps of two trucks in been , who, by creating a bridge Mason’s evocative and whimsical movement titles is played at breakneck speed, layered with complex reverse. The music on this album has opened our between classical and popular music, seemed to juxtapose real and imagined animals, numerous rhythms, and tweaked with surprising shifts in the ears to the “arrhythmia” around us. And while this offer a path for a musician like Gordon—originally dance traditions, and multiple languages, and groove. Autechre’s Cfern (2001) is built around a sort of rhythmic complexity may be the exception a keyboard player in rock bands—to become a each title inspires a quirky, colorful, and highly single repeated syncopated phrase that is stretched in music, it seems to be the rule in the world composer. The Nancarrow-like rhythmic ideas that complex dance. Mason divides the ensemble into out and then compressed again, and gradually beyond. It’s music with a single pulse that begins appear throughout Gordon’s music are always numerous groups that play in distinct tempos, overcome by noise and confl icting drum patterns. to feel peculiar. seen through the lens of American minimalism speeding up and slowing down independently. and presented in the aggressive instrumental Although these tracks are the shortest on this —Alan Pierson textures and spare harmonies of rock. It was album, they are also the most densely packed with Yo Shakespeare (1992), widely considered with ideas. Mr. Mason intended that all twelve his breakthrough piece, that Gordon developed movements be played continuously as a single Although the rhythmic ideas explored in these a wholly individual rhythmic vocabulary. Gordon work, but has granted special permission for us works seem the province of contemporary music, describes the piece as “three different dance to spread a selection of the dances throughout a few composers played with similar ideas bands playing at the same time”: two bands the album. Presenting them in this context leaves centuries earlier. In the 14th century, Johannes play the same odd repeating rhythm, one at listeners time to appreciate the zany wizardry of Ciconia composed his Le Ray Au Soleyl canon in two-thirds the speed of the other, while the third these tiny gems one by one, and helps draw out which three voices sing the same tune in different (which enters later) hammers away at repeated connections between his creations and those of tempos. Gavin Chuck’s arrangement adheres groups of six notes in an apparently independent the other composers. closely to the original text, adding a drum part tempo. These confl icting layers grind against one to outline the various grooves and accents. A another throughout, though the whole contraption This album is about the intersection of complexity century after Ciconia, Josquin des Prez created somehow fi nds its own lurching groove. Like and pulse, and composers have reached that a similar canon in a movement from his Missa Nancarrow’s studies, this rhythmic concoction intersection on widely different paths: while Ligeti L’homme armé super voces musicales, heard was created mechanically—Gordon dreamed up and Birtwistle came from avant-garde communities here in an arrangement by Payton MacDonald the bizarre rhythmic layers of Yo Shakespeare on that admired complexity but tended to mistrust the that augments the rhythmic complexity of the his computer sequencer and initially doubted that regularity of pulse, the electronica artists included original by fi lling out the texture with layers of musicians would be able to replicate it. here work in a scene where pulse is central but confl icting pulses. complexity more rare. David Wong (better known as Mochipet) and the duo of Rob Brown and Sean That the rhythmic ideas on this album have Booth (better known as Autechre) work in the genre been developed independently by composers sometimes referred to as IDM: intelligent dance in different generations suggests that they may music. The “intelligent” part of IDM has to do with not be as idiosyncratic as one might think. And all

Produced by Gavin Chuck Engineers: David Kerzner and Dan Bora Recorded at William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ and Looking Glass Studios, New York City Mixed by Dan Bora Album design by ilovedust Photography by Justin Bernhaut

For Nonesuch Records: Production Coordinator: Eli Cane Editorial Coordinator: Ronen Givony Production Supervisor: Karina Beznicki

Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz www.alarmwillsound.com www.nonesuch.com

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Nonesuch Records Inc., a Warner Music Group Company, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104. & © 2009 Nonesuch Records Inc. for the United States and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the United States. Warning: Unauthorized reproduction of this recording is prohibited by federal law and subject to criminal prosecution. Alarm Will Sound

Jessica Johnson fl ute, piccolo, pan pipes Kelli Kathman fl ute, piccolo, pan pipes Jacqueline Leclair oboe, English horn Bill Kalinkos clarinet, E-fl at clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophones, celesta Elisabeth Stimpert clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophones Alex Hamlin saxophone Ken Thomson saxophone Michael Harley bassoon, contrabassoon, piano, harpsichord, keyboard Matt Marks horn, keyboard Kate Sheeran horn Jason Price trumpet, percussion Michael Clayville trombone Payton MacDonald percussion Christopher Thompson percussion John Orfe piano, keyboard violin, electric guitar, electric bass, voice Courtney Orlando violin, voice John Pickford Richards viola, accordion Stefan Freund cello Miles Brown bass, percussion

Alan Pierson artistic director, conductor, keyboard Gavin Chuck managing director

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