Peaches because it was just so cool, so long, and that awesome guitar solo. It was rock music, but nobody sings; it was chamber music, but theres a drum set and an electric guitar solo; it totally blew my mind.
Electric Guitar Phase was the first time I had every heard anything related to minimalism. For those not familiar with the piece, it is a distorted guitar riff (originally a violin) played constantly, then a second guitar playing the same riff enters, and slowly phases (moving forward or backward one eighth note at a time) in and out with the first guitar. Then a third guitar enters, then a fourth. All playing this same riff, all phasing with each other. For 22 minutes. The first time I heard it I had to hear it again. It was glorious.
I have since gobbled up all the Zappa and Reich I possibly can, read their books, played their music, and been to concerts of their works.
I love Zappa's work ethic and unique perspective on all things, I love Reich's experiments with tape and voice and layering. Just the mind wanting to experiment and discover and look what happened!
So really you can blame it all on them.
Zappa is really interesting. There's a story that he called Edgar Varese at home (he looked him up in the phone book) when Zappa was a kid, just to tell him that he was his favorite composer. Too funny.
ReplyDeleteTrue story. He said in his book (memoirs) that he would make friends listen to Varese's music, and thought that it was the ultimate test of intelligence.
ReplyDeleteAs for music that has moved me personally, most of Mahler's symphonies, but specifically the 5th. Other pieces include Berlioz's Witches Sabbath (from the symphony) and Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy.
Also, damn, Peaches en Regalia is GOOD. I think Hot Rats may be my favorite album.
I've never had a composition affect me as much as Giya Kancheli's viola concerto Styx, and I only heard it ... last year? I think I've mentioned it a few times now. I've always been impressed by a successful incorporation of choir into symphonic works (for this concerto is certainly symphonic), but something about Kancheli's organic sound space and beautifully unfolding melodies evoke such genuine longing and passionate anguish. I'm kind of a sucker for darkly dramatic music anyway, but I've simply never identified with a piece as strongly and immediately as Styx.
ReplyDelete(I'm trying to hunt down a solo piano work by Kancheli, but haven't been too successful in discovering if one even exists yet.)
It's very difficult to name one piece in specific but I'd say Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, as cliche as it is, has had profound affect on me. I grew up listening to it, my sister being a ballet dancer, and it was really the first music that wasn't Nsync or Blink-182, that I actually enjoyed.
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