Thursday, April 26, 2012

Rene Bosc - Zeuhl-Inspired Arrangement of Bartok

Rene Bosc is a composer and a conductor who happens to be a huge fan of Magma and Zeuhl Music. He has taken a piano piece by Bela Bartok and re-arranged it for 2 pianos and percussion. When I listen to this arrangement, I can help but think of Wurdah Itah. Definitely worth a listen.

When you listen to this piece, you will definitely see the inspiration that Vander drew from Bartok.

And, here is one more surprise .... Rene told me that later this year, he will be conducting an orchestra in his arrangement of .... wait for it ..... Wurdah Itah !!! (According to Memo, Rene has conducted this before ... so where is the video !!!)


3 comments:

  1. Some years ago he had a project about Wurdah Itah with an clasic orchestra.

    Memo

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  2. If you lack of classical infos, this arrangement reproduce the style of the Bartok's Sonata for 2 pianos and 2 percussionists, a masterpiece. Percussions' parts of the "Allegro Barbaro" arrangemets are clearly taken from the sonata patterns. This ensemble type of "pianos-percussions" was pioneered in 1923 both by Stravinskij in Les Noces (the most magmian modern composition I've ever heard) and by Antheil in "Ballet Mecanique". It's not a case if they appear in the end of the video. In his first two piano concertos (1926 and 1930-1) Bartok also experiments with solo piano and percussion timbres, culminating in the just-citated Sonata (1937) which most influeced modern composer to combine keyboards with pitched and unpitched percussions, occasionally adding voices in the Stravinskijan style. Wurdah Itah is exactly a work of them: except for the electric bass (or is it a pitched percussion as played by Top?), we have:
    Christian Vander – drums, percussion, piano, Fender Rhodes, vocal
    Stella Vander – vocals
    Klaus Blasquiz – vocals, percussion
    Jannick Top – bass

    However, the piano is nothing else than a pitched percussion (Stravinskij lists it there in his score), so the pianos-percussions combo is nothing else than a different kind of percussion ensemble.

    Please, listen to Les Noces ;)

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