(unreleased)
Warner Bros. Soundstage, Burbank, California
July 1993
Ensemble Modern
conducted by Peter Eötvös
Produced by FZ
We are proud to announce a new album of Varèse's works, produced by FZ.
Varèse: The Rage and The Fury.
FZ's final project: The music of his favorite composer, Edgard Varèse.
He wanted a performance and a recording that would sound the way he had always dreamed of hearing it. This is finally a state-of-the-art recording that captures the true power and inner detail of Varèse's works. FZ said,"Varèse's music has never been given the credit it deserves and I believe it's because the technology was never there to record the compositions properly". This album was recorded in July of 1993 at the Warner Bros. soundstage in Burbank, CA utilizing custom audio snakes and all tube microphone pre-amps recorded directly to the Sony 3324 digital multi-track.
The music was conducted by Peter Eötvös and performed by some of the members of The Ensemble Modern. A release date has not yet been set.
PIECES PERFORMED:
HYPERPRISM
OCTANDRE
INTEGRALES
IONISATION
DESERTS
DENSITY 21.5
POÈME ÉLECTRONIQUE
Quickie: does anyone know anything about release of "The Rage and the Fury" (I'm pretty sure this is correct name - FZ's rework of Varese). I read about it last year, and have queried Ryko.
What do you mean by "rework"? I was at one of the sessions (July '93, they were recording Integrales) and I was very impressed by what I saw. Frank worked with each musician on details, some very "minor" and concerning only those familiar with (some Souter-hearings language is appropriate here) "arcana and minutia" (such as little tweezes of the oboe and trumpet parts, and recording passages twice with different notes so's when they found out which version was the "true" one they'd have it for use--Varese scholars will love this album!). [And "arcana" is appropriate for any discussion of Varese!] Incidentally, they used TWO big bass drums for the bass drum part!--nice drum rolls! (If the ZFT is reading this and getting teed off for me revealing "trade secrets", well, why don't you jest release the damn album??? Next, I'll tell *where* it was taped!!!!!!!)
(Ah, that would be at Warnner Bros in LA I belive.)
[This meeting with E.M. was good for me since I could talk to the players individually and their comments backed up *my* way of editing Ives' music over some of my upper-level overseers' ways in the CEI heirarchy!]
There are audio samples of this album at: http://www.zappa.com/
Composers David Raksin and Nic Slonimsky both attended part of the sessions and seemed to think they'd never heard Edgard served so well in their lifetimes.
If Slonimsky said that, then the album should be released IMMEDIATELY.
FZ thought it was the best version he'd ever heard.
The reason for it's delay in release is that it's caught up in legal battles (not with the Varese family or anyone directly associated with Varese).
-Spence Chrislu
Now look at the html-source of that page. (http://www.zappa.com/)
In the keywords, they didn't mention "Freak Out" and "Absolutely Free" and "Läther". Otoh, there is "Dance Me This", "Trance-Fusion", "The Rage And The Fury".
Wtf?
All music written by Edgar Varèse