Notes for Chinese Legend
(Udaya Ravichandrika, Bilaskhani Todi and Gunkali)
Chinese Legend
originated with the main repeated melodic figure which came to me while driving
home over Coldwater Canyon after midnight following an informal and moving sitar
performance by Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy at his home. Out of curiosity, I searched
for a raga which contained the same swaras or tones of my new-found melody,
discovering Udaya Ravichandrika, a South Indian raga. There is
some controversy over whether to use a natural or flat seventh. I decided to
use both. The main melodic voice here is a sitar, the instrument of Ravi Shankar.
In the Fall of 1997, Martin Perlich, the distinguished KUSC Los Angeles radio
host, played Chinese Legend in-between music by Mozart and C.P.E. Bach, describing
my music as being “highly recommended for people interested in living composers.”
From Hills of Snow
was inspired by a recording of raga Bilaskhani Todi by sitarist Rais
Khan and Sultan Khan, the sarangi artist. This elegiac raga was composed in
the sixteenth century for the funeral of Tansen, one of the greatest figures
in the history of Hindustani music, by his son, Bilas Khan. Tansen had disapproved
of his son's marriage, and they had not spoken for years. Upon completion of
its first performance, this profoundly moving raga miraculously caused Tansen's
arm to move with a gesture of forgiveness. I have chosen a piano timbre with
an Indian tuning for this composition.
Porcelain Nights
was a great pleasure and challenge for me. It is based on Raga Gunkali,
an inspirational early morning raga that was sung by Bade Ghulam Ali Khan on
one of the first Indian classical music recordings I ever heard. It remains
a favorite to this day. The zither timbre employed here is a tribute to santoor
artist Shivkumar Sharma. After completing the work, I was fortunate to come
across his own version of Gunkali, and I subsequently decided to replace my
original tanpura pattern with the one he uses to "create the atmosphere"
of Gunkali.
All three of these compositions
were written in 1997.
- Michael
Robinson, January 1999, Beverly Hills
© 1999 by Michael Robinson All rights reserved
There is without doubt
method to the barely restrained madness that frequently surfaces in the music
of Michael Robinson, a Beverly Hills resident who recently had his music improvised
by none other than Ray Manzarek at LA's Jazz Bakery.At times the music drifts
along with a minimum of fuss only to be plucked from the tranquil stream bed
and twisted in front of your ears into something very different. From out of
nowhere a resounding tabla and accompanying Indian percussion will leap from
the undergrowth and embellish the increasingly erratic piano lines that only
seconds earlier were wandering aimlessly.There are also extremely interesting
divisions between the hand played parts and the obviously heavily sequenced
ones, usually without any indication that one has taken over from the other.
Either the lead parts are recorded very very slowly and quantized or Michael
is leaving sections for the cut and paste.Who knows? The main thing is that
his music is a definite grower. I've listened to the whole album several times
at different times of the day and found myself increasingly drawn to the random
creativity that creates spaces that are quite unique to this composer.In closing
the presentation of the CD's we received for our listening pleasure were packaged
quite delightfully with covers comprising of single sheets of Japanese hand
silk screened rice paper and a direct to disk recording autographed by Michael
himself.Before I even placed it on the platter I just knew I'd love it.Rating
- 921,233 (out of a possible 1,000,000)
- electronicmusic.com, 1997