Microtonal Music of Ezra Sims
Liner Notes   Cat. No. NWCR643     Release Date: 2007-01-01

Dinosaur Annex: Cynthia Cummings, violin; Sandra Lechner Kott, violin; Anne Black, viola; Michael Curry, cello; Beth Pearson, cello; Suellen Hershman, flute; Katherine V. Matasy, clarinet; Ian Greitzer, clarinet; Cynthia Cummings, computer/Conductor

Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston; Gisèle Ben-Dor, Conductor

"For the last thirty-two years, I have been writing microtonal music. For the intervals—hitherto uncanonical in Western concert music—in those reaches of the harmonic series one and two octaves higher than the ones in which the classical tonal music of the seventeenth-to-nineteenth centuries was founded.

"Between 1963 and 1973, because there were almost no instrumentalists who I could interest in my music, I wrote very little instrumental music, contenting myself with making taped pieces, often for dancers. Since then I have been fortunate enough to find players for whom to write. At the same time, I have seen developing in my music what I think is really a revolutionary system of tonality. It is a system with all the structural, rhetorical and affective capabilities of classical tonality, but without the dependence on the triad. It can, however, accommodate itself to and appropriate itself the materials and usages of tradition tonal practice just as tonal music can make use of the materials and ways of modal counterpoint. It uses a twenty-four-note scale, which, like the diatonic, is both asymmetrical in shape, and transposable, so as to begin on any step as an equally spaced chromatic (in this case, the seventy-two notes mentioned above). I have published descriptions of it in Computer Music Journal, vol. 12, no. 4, and Perspectives of New Music, vol. 29, no. 1 for those interested in knowing more."  — Ezra Sims


This title, originally issued on the CRI label, is now available as a burn-on-demand CD (CD-R) or download in MP3/320, FLAC or WAV formats. CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print booklet or jewel case included. Liner notes are accessible via the link above.

 

Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble

Microtonal Music of Ezra Sims

MP3/320 $9.99
FLAC $9.99
WAV $9.99
CD-R $9.99
CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print material or jewel case included.
A *.pdf of the notes may be accessed here free of charge.
   Liner Notes



Track Listing

Quintet: I. Headlong
Ezra Sims
Buy
Quintet: II. Placid & Meditative
Ezra Sims
Buy
Quintet: III. Hell for leather
Ezra Sims
Buy
Quintet: IV. Solid - sustained and floating
Ezra Sims
Buy
Night Piece: In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni
Ezra Sims
Buy
Solo in Four Movements: I. Introduction
Ezra Sims
Buy
Solo in Four Movements: II. Oration
Ezra Sims
Buy
Solo in Four Movements: III. Meditation
Ezra Sims
Buy
Solo in Four Movements: IV. Conclusion
Ezra Sims
Buy
Flight
Ezra Sims
Buy
Concert Piece: Buoyant and insouciant
Ezra Sims
Buy
Concert Piece: Still and timeless (nocturnal)
Ezra Sims
Buy
Concert Piece: Intensely inward
Ezra Sims
Buy
Concert Piece: Excited
Ezra Sims
Buy