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The Experimental Music of Frank Zappa

Performances | Comments | Conceptual Continuity

Mount St. Mary's College, LA
May 19, 1963

• Variables II for Orchestra
• Variables I for Any Five Instruments
• Opus 5, for Four Orchestras
• Rehearsalism
• Three Pieces of Visual Music with Jazz Group

Official release(s):

• The Lost Episodes (1996) parts of "Opus 5" as Mount St. Mary's Concert Excerpt
• Video From Hell (1987) probably some of the 8mm movies as background for the videoclip of G-Spot Tornado
• Joe's XMASage (2005) probably some of the pre-recorded tapes as The Moon Will Never Be The Same and Mousie's First Xmas

Tour(s) in which song is known to have been performed (main source: FZShows, v. 7.1):

• May 19, 1963 (Mount St. Mary's College, LA)

Comments:

• The Original Concert Program
• Transcription
• The Lost Episodes Edit

FZ on an interview from the 1992 Zappa! tribute magazine (Keyboard and Guitar Player):

Actually, the first time I had any of it ["serious" music] performed was at Mount St. Mary's College in 1962. I spent $300 and got together a college orchestra, and I put on this little concert. Maybe less than a hundred people showed up for it, but the thing was actually taped and broadcast by KPFK. (...) By the time I graduated from high school in '58, I still hadn't written any rock and roll songs, although I had a little rock and roll band in my senior year. I didn't write any rock and roll stuff until I was in my 20s. All the music writing that I was doing was either chamber music or orchestral, and none of it ever got played until this concert at Mount St. Mary's.

Rip Rense on the liner notes of The Lost Episodes (1996):

It took place in 1963 at, of all pastoral places, lovely Mount St. Mary's College, a private Catholic institution perched in the lush Santa Monica Mountains above West Los Angeles. (...) The program included a piece called "Opus 5," aleatoric works that required some improvisation, a piece for orchestra and taped electronic music, with accompanying visuals in the form of FZ's own experimental 8mm films (Motorhead Sherwood described one such film depicting the Los Angeles County Fair carnival, double exposed with passing telephone poles).

The Original Concert Program

From Charles Ulrich:

Greg Russo just sent me a photocopy of the Mt. St. Mary's concert 
program. Here's the info:
 
MOUNT ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC
 
presents
 
THE EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
OF
FRANK ZAPPA
 
Sunday, May 19, 1963
8:30 p.m.
 
Little Theater
 
Mount St. Mary's College
 
---------------------------------------
 
Program
 
I. Variables II for Orchestra
II. Variables I for Any Five Instruments
 
Intermission
 
III. Opus 5, for Four Orchestras
IV. Rehearsalism
V. Three Pieces of Visual Music with Jazz Group
 
Question and Answer Period

The Lost Episodes (1996) version:

The original approx. 12:33 minutes of the original performance of "Opus 5" have been shortened to approx. 1:40 for The Lost Episodes (1996) version. Here is where the edits occur (all times approx.):

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