Philip Corner
Corner became interested in calligraphy during military service in Korea. While there he became enamored with Korean traditional music, particularly the jeongak composition Sujecheon. Many of his scores are open-ended in that some elements are specified, but others are left partially or entirely to the discretion of the performers. Some employ standard notation, whereas others are graphic scores, text scores, etc. His music also frequently explores unintentional sound, chance activities, minimalism, and non-Western instruments and tuning systems. Also in his oeuvre are piano pieces, choral works, electronic music, and more than 400 works.
Corner became interested in calligraphy during military service in Korea. While there he became enamored with Korean traditional music, particularly the jeongak composition Sujecheon. Many of his scores are open-ended in that some elements are specified, but others are left partially or entirely to the discretion of the performers. Some employ standard notation, whereas others are graphic scores, text scores, etc. His music also frequently explores unintentional sound, chance activities, minimalism, and non-Western instruments and tuning systems. Also in his oeuvre are piano pieces, choral works, electronic music, and more than 400 works.
Italian Air: Wind, Water & Metal
**Limited edition of 300 including two inserts** The first release on Ricerca Sonora is a new album by the important American Avant-Garde figure Philip Corner. A contemporary of John Cage, Corner studied composition with Henry Cowell and Otto Luening and musical analysis with Oliver Messaiaen. He was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, founder (with James Tenney and Malcolm Goldstein) of the Tone Roads Ensemble, the resident musician and composer for the Judson dance theatre, and co-founde…
Piano work'd
Philip Corner (b. 1933) is an American composer, musician and visual artist. His teachers include Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen. While on military duty in Korea in 1960-1961, he studied calligraphy with Ki-sung Kim and many of his works have calligraphic scores. A founding member of Fluxus, Corner has performed with George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik. From 1967 to 1970 he taught the course in Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research, which John Ca…
Coldwater basin
* 180 copies * Anticipating Fluxus celebrations in 2012, alga marghen proudly presents one of the masterpieces from the glorious 60s, by master of ecstatic music Philip Corner. “Remember? When you made these things at home, on the best equipment you or your other poor friends could find? And you had that Japanese tape recorder with built-in mike; indeed that was the only piece of furniture on your tatami floor on the Lower East Side that summer of 1961”.A home recording of water running from a f…
Le son des ténèbres
Art edition including an LP with the recordings at the Istituto della Calcografia Nazionale in Rome of 2 world premiere compositions by Philip Corner and Daniele Lombardi. Issued in 80 signed and numbered copies and including excerpts form the original scores. Philip Corner “Tenebres: Lesson&Light” (Studies in Shadow and Light), learning from the dark the grand lesson of music. The darkest sound in musici s the tone-cluster. Approximation of the even denser aggregates existent already in …
Pieces From The Past: By Philip Corner For The Violin of Malcolm
Five works spanning 30 years from composer Philip Corner written for violinst Malcolm Goldstein, early notated works and later graphic works, four of the pieces from live recordings. "It has been a while in the works, but finally Pogus can proudly announce the release of this wonderful disc. Five works spanning 30 plus years by experimental composer Philip Corner, interpreted by his friend and fellow composer and utterly amazing violinist Malcolm Goldstein. These works consist of early pieces w…
Joy Flashings
A joyful product of mutual understanding between these two outstanding composers, described by Manuel Zurria in the booklet with the following words: "Philip Corner gave me the key to enter a secret and wonderful room, full of fabulous things and made me discover a part of me I did not know." Much more than a journey through sound, this work is a reflection on our modern world and the role played by music and soundscapes. It's a journey through traditional instruments and modern technique…
Pictures of Pictures from Pictures of Pictures (1975-1979)
Rare and long out of print LP...This album, featuring solo piano compositions, was released in 1983. The work draws inspiration from Modest Moussorgsky's 1874 composition "Pictures at an Exhibition," which was based on ten etchings. Klaus Peter Brehmer reissued these etchings, while Philip Corner contributed his own interpretation. The repetitive melodies and rhythms reflect Russian folklore and minimalism, while the spatial arrangement resembles Japanese interiors. The succession of images in p…
Piano Work
Another outstanding slab of 'Lo-Fi What The Fuck Is Going On?' from one of my heros... I know alot of you noise heads will be turned off by the 'piano' in the title...but man... no one has ever made more CRUDE sounds on a piano than corner... seriously... have no clue WHAT The fuck is going on... think he is just banging on the outside of the piano and throwing stuff at it... people are talkin...coughing...hangin out...at one point someone even fucking SITS on the microphone...Edition of 300 cop…
DIY Canons
"The pieces on this CD are all based on the ideas in Larry Polansky's four voice canons, a series of pieces he began in 1975. These canons are usually "mensuration canons," which means that the tempi of successive voices is proportional to their start times, so that the voices end together. They also use simple ideas of moving through a list of permutations, and applying the elements of those permutations to various musical parameters. A set of Polansky's canons was produced on Cold Blue Records…
40 years and one
This man and his work represent the real "speculum musicae" of the past 40 years. The example of his music embodies a lifelong commitment to an integral radicalism. . . . this is a venerable tradition that Philip has written so eloquently about, and continued in his music. A tradition that stems from "Charlie" Ives through John Cage and Lou Harrison. All of these composers would ultimately admonish us to do one thing: to open our ears--and LISTEN! —Peter GarlandPerhaps the single most striking …
Extreme Positions
Philip Corner was an active member of Fluxus, a founder of the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble, the resident musician and composer for the Judson Dance Theatre, and co-founder of Gamelan Son of Lion. The musical opportunities that these ensembles and their performances offered Corner ensured that he was both prolific and had or developed a deep understanding of the important artistic influences of that time. Corner uses a variety of scoring methods. He is truly the equal of John Cage in forcing us t…
On tape from the Judson days
"'On tape from the Judson days. Remember? When you made these things at home, on the best equipment you or your other poor friends could find? Electronic music from the 1960s. And you had that Japanese taperecorder with built-in mike; indeed that was the only piece of furniture on your tatami floor on the Lower East Side that summer of 1961.' This compact disc presents tape music recorded between 1962 and 1963 for the friends meeting once a week in a loft in NYC. The first track, 'Lucinda Pastim…
More from the Judson years Vol. 2
2004 release. Excerpts from the liner notes of More from the Judson Years (Early 60s) Instrumental-Vocal Works Vol. 2, written by Philip Corner: "Everything Max Has" (1964), Max Neuhaus solo, recorded at the ONCE Festival, 1965. "A performance of Max's taking down all of his stuff; tons of equipment filling entire stages." "Big Trombone" (1963), Jim Fulkerson improvisation over tape collage. "Homage to Revere" (1962) for ensemble of copper-bottom kitchen utensils. "Punkt" (1961) for ensemble of …
More from the Judson years Vol. 1
2004 release. "Yet not to forget that extraordinary place where so much of the new and exciting performances at that most interesting time in New York, took place. There was a Theater there; and a place for the first Happenings. An Art Gallery... and later the famous Judson Dance Theater -- the site of Philip Corner's first performance. The concert was in early 1962, January 2nd, to be exact. Excerpts from the liner notes of volume one of More from the Judson Years, Early 60s, written by Philip …
Metal meditations
"Metal Meditations is the culmination of many years experience and experiment with the properties of resonant metal objects, whether intended for music for not." Philip Corner. One side is taken from a 1974 performance at Merce Cunningham's studio, performed by David Behrman (electronics and performer) & others. There is also a 1975 performance with Bill Fontana and Corner ("long metal pipe with active microphone) as well as a short version from the Avant Garde Festival in Cambridge, MA, 1978.
Gong +
2002 release. Gong + presents three previously-unpublished compositions by Philip Corner recorded in New York City, 1974. "Metal Meditations with Listening Center," a 29-minute long piece, is a collaboration between Philip Corner and Bill Fontana. At that time Bill Fontana was very interested in the resonance properties of every object, putting his ear to everything, and sometimes recording what he called "Listening Centers," a microphone placed in a resonating space (for example a jar, or a pip…
3 pieces for gamelan ensemble
'Gamelan' means for Phillip Corner more than the name for Indonesian orchestras. The composer uses the word the way, apart from Europe, someone might say 'symphony'. A basis of making music, adding a few wonderful ideas from the Orient: a precise relation between the scale of time and that of musical space; a simple formal concept, expressed directly through sensual attractiveness; some freedom, or mystery, added to the precision. 'Gamelan' is the name of the first piece. In 1975 at Livingston C…
Avant Marghen Vol. 1
Lucky find, few copies in - Incredible set of 3 boxes, each with 7LPs in it, from the Alga Marghen archives. These are all previously released LPs, but most have been o/p for many years now. The boxes are limited to a numbered edition of 80 copies each. "The VocSon series might be identified as the starting point of all the Alga Marghen activities. This series, which still continues to present on limited LP records the most advanced international vocal experiments, is mainly dedicated to the doc…