(2012) Frank Zappa - London Symphony Orchestra Vol. I & II


Review:
Following upon a vocally oriented accessible album "You are what you is" (1981), Zappa concentrated on his further establishment as a composer of modern music for the coming albums. After the "200 motels" recordings he had repeatedly tried to get some more performances of his orchestral scores. Most attempts failed for all kinds of reasons, except for the "Orchestral favourites" sessions (recorded in 1975, released in 1979). In "The real Frank Zappa book" he's using several pages to utter his frustrations about unfulfilled agreements. In 1982 however Zappa had enough means to hire the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and Pierre Boulez commissioned him to compose a piece for the Ensemble Intercontemporain. The L.S.O. was given a large program of one and a half hour of music, which was originally released in two volumes. The first one of 1983 having new compositions, the second one of 1987 mostly containing large orchestra versions of music stemming from "200 motels" and "Orchestral favourites". With the Ensemble Intercontemporain three pieces of music were recorded, that together with computer performed music were released as "The perfect stranger" in 1984. Most of the new compositions show Zappa's atonal side full blown. Zappa's music in general is not accessible, often sounding as loose ends when hearing it for the first time. The appreciation of his music is a matter of time and getting accustomed to his rhythmic and harmonic versatility. For the majority of CD buyers, who look for music for direct consumption, his name is familiar, but what he stands for remains obscure and inunderstandable. Inaccessibility applies most of all to atonal music, when you lose all technical grip of music you're acquainted with. The better atonal music starts to work when, after listening more frequently, you start recognizing the structure building elements in it and the composition comes alive. Most of Zappa's atonal music has this effect, in some cases it's more experimental. His atonal music is of the free kind; apart from some early stuff, he doesn't apply preconceived things as serialism. The current CD release is carries the title "London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. I & II" in full.





Tracklist:

Disc One
1."Bob in Dacron, First Movement"        
2."Bob in Dacron, Second Movement"        
3."Sad Jane, First Movement"                
4."Sad Jane, Second Movement"                
5."Mo 'N Herb's Vacation, First Movement"
6."Mo 'N Herb's Vacation, Second Movement"
7."Mo 'N Herb's Vacation, Third Movement"

Disc Two
1."Envelopes"                                
2."Pedro's Dowry"                        
3."Bogus Pomp"                                
4."Strictly Genteel"                            


Media Report:
Genre: 20th-century classical
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits