• Philip Corner - EXTREEMIZMS early & late - Unseen Worlds
  • Philip Corner - EXTREEMIZMS early & late - Unseen Worlds
  • [product title] - unseen worlds
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Philip Corner
EXTREEMIZMS early & late

Performed by Silvia Tarozzi, violin; Deborah Walker, cello; Rhodri Davies, harp; Philip Corner, piano

$5.00 USD
$5.00 USD
Format

Release date:

UW021DIGITAL
• Instant Bandcamp download code

Extremes are extreme, extremely. For Philip Corner, a lifelong commitment to extremes - extreme expression, extreme beauty, extreme noise, extreme silence - developed a mastery of expression, any one extreme may result in all of the others. In gripping new recordings by the duo of Silvia Tarozzi, violin, and Deborah Walker, cello - with assistance from Rhodri Davies, harp, and Philip Corner, piano - Corner's early ensemble works from 1958 are paired with newer, late works from 2015-2016. The works from 1958, "Two-part monologue" and "FINALE,” were composed while Corner was teaching at City College and still finishing his Masters at Columbia University under Henry Cowell and Otto Luening. Extremes being extreme, they were too extreme for Columbia. Yet, Corner completed his degree and continued to stretch on, creating works somewhere between the supercomputer-refined micro-tunings of James Tenney and the ecstatic enactments of Malcolm Goldstein, his Tone Roads bandmates. Now, with the world (somewhat) caught up, we can appreciate Philip Corner’s EXTREEMIZMS, early and late, together.

Press

"Corner is a highly interesting and perhaps somewhat overlooked composer. As a student he was guided by Otto Luening, Henry Cowell and Oliver Messian. He was a member of Fluxus, became immersed in Zen Buddhism and now lives in Italy. Corner is a significant artery channelling a huge swathe of the avant-garde. After the brief wHoly Trintye, a duality ov duos – first (2016), the almost 15 minute 2 Extreemizms (2015) opens the album out into a gently blooming drone for violin and cello. The tiniest deepening of intensity some 4 minutes in beautifully evolves the entire scene. Yet deeper tones come in at around 7 and half minutes. So far, a group mind meditating in the same mental and physical space. And then it happens… The stylus slips into freefall. That very same grouping spills out into a wild, see-sawing and yelping mess. The sudden exhilarating physicality of the players, revealing their own vocalisations like some fourth wall rule being dissolved." - Obladada

Track List

DIGITAL TRACK LIST

  1. wHoly Trinitye, a duality ov duos - first (2016)      
  2. 2 Extreemizms (2015)
  3. Two-part Monologue No. 1 (1958) 
  4. Two-part Monologue No. 2 (1958)*
  5. Two-part monologue No. 3 (1958) 
  6. wHoly Trinitye, a duality ov duos - second (2016)
  7. FINALE - violin, cello, piano (1958)*
  8. wHoly Trinitye, for a “free-togethering” (2016)^
  9. wHoly Trinitye, another Duet, just-one (2016)

Silvia Tarozzi (violin), Deborah Walker (cello)
*w/ Philip Corner (piano)
^w/ Rhodri Davies (harp)

Credits

Recorded by Roberto Salvati, December 2016 at Angelica Centro di Ricerca Musicale - Teatro San Leonardo (Bologna, IT) except track 8 recorded live by Andrea Rovacchi, Mai 2016 at Palazzo Magnani (Reggio Emilia, IT)
Mixed by Roberto Salvati, September 2017 at Angelica Centro di Ricerca Musicale except tracks 3, 4, 9 mixed by Andrea Rovacchi, February 2018 at Sound Temple Studio (Parma, IT)
Mastered by Andrea Rovacchi, February 2018 at Sound Temple Studio

Design Philip Corner

Liner Notes

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About Philip Corner

  • Philip Corner

  • (April 10, 1933 - ) 

    After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner received his BA (1955) at CCNY, where his most important teacher was Fritz Jahoda; and an MA (1959) from Columbia University where his composition teachers were Otto Luening and Henry Cowell, The two years in between (1955–57) were spent in Paris at the Conservatoire Nat'l de Musique, following the class "Philosophie Musicale" of Olivier Messiaen. Equally important was his friendship with the Canadian painter Paul-Emile Borduas, who introduced him to "la grande aventure nord-américaine", to which he returned and became part of the group around John Cage. At the same time he resumed his studies of the piano with Dorothy Taubman, which was to have a significant role in his compositional as well as performing life.

    He taught Modern Music at the New School for Social Research from 1967–1970, inheriting the class founded by John Cage at double remove after Richard Maxfield, with whom he was teaching assistant, and Malcolm Goldstein. His teaching career started at a New York City high school and continued at the New Lincoln School where he helped develop the music department and introduced innovative courses (1966–1972). During this period he was married to the astrologer and trance medium Julie Winter who was also a minister in the Church of Religious Science, with which he too was associated, composing music to be sung at meditation sessions. From 1972 to 1992 he continued as professor at the newly established Livingston College, a part of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, soon to be absorbed into the Mason Gross School of the Arts. He then took early retirement and moved to Reggio Emilia, Italy where he had previous contact through the Pari e Dispari "Arte Club Internazionale". An early friend, the dancer and choreographer Phoebe Neville, joined him there and became his wife and performance partner.

    He was a founding participant of Fluxus since 1961, was a resident composer and musician with the Judson Dance Theatre from 1962 to 1964 and later with the Experimental Intermedia Foundation upon the invitation of Elaine Summers, for whose dance company he served as musician. He co-founded with Malcolm Goldstein and James Tenney the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in 1963 (active until 1970), with Julie Winter Sounds Out of Silent Spaces in 1972 (active until 1979) and with Barbara Benary and Daniel Goode, Gamelan Son of Lion in 1976 (still active).

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