The Low Literature represented by these names, and including a host of bad romances and plays, enjoyed an extensive popularity during Schiller's time, and survived for several years after the War of Liberation. He was followed, at a later time, by Heun, who used the pseudonyme Clauren, and ruled in the circulating libraries as Kotzebue ruled on the stage. " Abällino' and ' Rinaldo Rinaldini' were both respectable when compared with some of the romances written by CRAMER and LAFONTAINE especially some stories of domestic life by the latter, who wrote more than one hundred and thirty volumes of unwholesome fiction, made worse by the insertion of false moral reflections. However, there’s no doubting his genuine musicality, nor the respect he commanded in the New Music community."The best works of Goethe and Schiller were not, at first, patronised by the German people, but were written in defiance of a popular taste which was satisfied with the dramatic writings of Kotzebue and Iffland, to say nothing of Rinaldo Rinaldini and the rest of the deplorable robber-romances of the time."- Outlines of German Literature (1873) by Joseph Gostwick and Robert Harrison My feelings about Tyranny’s protean, yet hit and miss artistic legacy remain ambivalent. My favorite moments in Tyranny’s ensemble work The Driver’s Son occur when Tyranny plays sparse, introspective, and harmonically gorgeous solo piano, in contrast to the extended and (for my taste) archly stylized vocal narration.ĭespite failing health, Tyranny himself was able to participate in selecting this collection’s contents, and provided informative booklet notes. Tyranny’s early Wooden Nickels (1968) represents the composer’s first attempt to write for jazz band its perky horn section writing wouldn’t be out of place as incidental music for a Chuck Barris TV game show production of that vintage (The Dating Game, for example).Īlthough certain electronic pieces suggest little more than New Age ambient music with an edge, Recollections, Songs from Aphasia showcases Tyranny’s lyrical gifts at their most inspired and focused, not to mention a mastery of setting English words that evoke Virgil Thomson’s Gertrude Stein settings. On the other hand, The Great Seal for two pianos (brilliantly performed by the duo Double Edge, consisting of Nurit Tilles and the late Edmund Niemann) contains stretches of arid, almost academic-sounding counterpoint that rambles on forever, giving way at one point to intense massed tremolos. How to Swing a Dog is an 11-minute live improvisation where seemingly “looped” electronically-based ostinatos anchor polyrhythmic melodic lines. I like the gentle, chorale-like piano introduction to The Invention of Memory, and the delicate, sustained interplay between Conrad Harris’ violin and Tyranny’s piano in Confession. The Unseen Worlds label has assembled a six-disc collection that offers a good cross-section of Tyranny’s work from micro to macro, so to speak. I recognized his wider stylistic proclivities, ranging from pop-oriented simplicity and traditional American musical theater to free jazz, electro-acoustic works, and experimental projects. However, over the years I got to know more of “Blue” Gene’s music making. God, was I bored! Tyranny seemed to noodle around for minutes on end, with no rhythm, no interesting ideas, and all at the same “mezzo everything” dynamic level. So I went to hear “Blue” Gene play a solo piano concert. My colleague called him “the Mozart of our time” and raved about this genius. Years ago, a pianist colleague specializing in new music urged me to check out an improvising/composing pianist with the unusual name of “Blue” Gene Tyranny (1945-2020).
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