Wednesday, January 9, 2008

17th Century Systems Music

For several decades now I've been an aficianado of "Systems music" the fiercely mathematical slowly evolving music of Steve Reich and (the early work of) Philip Glass, to name the most famous - a music where organs and mallet instruments weave hypnotic patterns around each other.

The composers themselves have admitted that that the inspiration for their music came from non-Western sources - particularly Indian ragas, Javanese and Balinese gamalan music and African music.

But watch, and have a listen to the music made by these four blokes in a room, playing a kind of mind of music that's Western in origin and been around since the 17th Century - Here.

The music has all the qualities I adore in Reich and Glass- patterns, repetition, tonality and a hovering scintillating cloud of overtones. Its very beautiful, and not a little odd.

I did a little research (bizarrely this is actually part of my day-job) and consulted the Wikipedia page on Change Ringing and discover that what they're doing is basically a portable version of Church Bell Ringing. But it sounds so beautiful, a little less clangorous than full scale bell-pealing. Check out this enchanting mp3 of 25560 London No. 3 Surprise Royal.

Church Bell ringing has long fascinated me - (and it got in the news recently after Muslim clerics quite rightly compared it to the amplified Muezzin call to prayer), and I'm aware that this sounds like the start of another obsession. However, it seems unlikely I'll take up handbell ringing, because it looks bloody difficult! Oddly enough, Ruth used to do a bit of Bellringing in the years before I knew her, and we still have her copy of Dove's Guide to the Church Bells of England knocking around somewhere...



More to listen to-

More handbell recordings

Church bell recordings

No comments: