How Do I Listen To This? Tyondai Braxton's Favourite LPs | Page 2 of 13 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

1. Morton FeldmanViolin and Orchestra

This is what I’m listening to most right now. Feldman is on constant rotation, but his series of pieces he wrote throughout the 70s for a solo instrument and orchestra is what I’m continually listening to. This version of Violin and Orchestra that the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt did I’m obsessed with. I’ve been listening to it everyday for a little over a year. It’s one of my favourite pieces because of the forces that he’s implying but it does not sound like an orchestra piece. He’s so keenly aware of sound. He turns his eye to a different way of way of composing that makes it something that can’t easily be reduced into some formula. You can just get wrapped up in it. It’s mysterious and kind of unknowable. But it’s really compelling – I’m moved by how his mind works. He does away with very basic principles of orchestral writing, an understanding of chord progressions and melody and harmony, even rhythm. He develops the piece in a way that shows he’s clearly operating with another set of variables, like in the way he resolves a chord. You don’t feel the familiarity of that way of operating within Western music.

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