Additional information:
:NEROLI:
(Thinking Music Part IV)
Composed and performed by Brian Eno
Following are the liner notes from this record:
Brian Eno's experiments with 'functional music'
really got under way in 1975 with the release of
"Discreet Music 1", a thirty minute piece formed
from the cyclic overlay and resulting
permutations of two melodies of different
duration.The result, in that case, was a tapestry
of shifting harmonic clusters - a moire',
simultaneously static and changing. As a listening
experience, it remains distinctive: calm, still
and deep, yet always slowly evolving,it gives one
the sensation of witnessing the unfolding of an
organic process.
It was this organic quality of movement-in-
stasis the Eno was to develop in later pieces such
as "Muisc For Airports" (1978) and "Thursday
Afternoon" (1985). All these pieces are systems
based: that is to say, their compositions are not
specified in note-to-note detail, but are the
results of the operation of particular patterning
processes on particular materials. In this sense
the works can be seen as modelling themselves on
natural processes, or as John Cage put
it,"imitating Nature in its manner of operation".
Like many of Eno's systems pieces, "Neroli" is
modal. In this case the mode is the Phrygian,
whose flattened second evokes the Moorish
atmosphere alluded to in the title. In this mode
the seventh is also flattened, and the combination
of these unusual intervals createsa mysterious
tonal ambiguity.This is further emphasised in
"Neroli", because the rootnote of the mode is
rarely played, whereas the fifth of the scale is
prominent. Together, the blurred tonality and the
lack of a distinct tonal centre give the piece a
hovering, weightless character. The melodic
line, with little forward momentum and no sense
of pulse, disperses and coalesces into exotic new
constellations. Eno says: "I wanted to make akind
of music that existed on the cusp between
melody and texture, and whose musical logic was
elusive enough to reward attention, but not so
strict as to demand it". As with his other works
in this area, this music readily recedes into
pure texture, atmosphere, ambience. And it is in
this space- "at the edge of music", as Eno
describes it - that there exists the possibility
of another kind of music, and other ways of
listening.
C. S. J. Bofop, March 1993
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