David Dalle
Thursday February 29th, 2024 with David Dalle
Black History Month bonus Leap Day show: Florence Price Encore; part three of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. 30 for 30 with Julius Eastman.

Today we have a bonus Black History Month show! This is only the 2nd time in 30 years I have had five programs in February, the last time was 1996! For this extra Leap Day show, we will have an encore of Florence Price with her 2nd Violin Concerto and part three looking at the music of Burkinabé musician Baba Commandant. I am also continuing my yearlong celebration of 30 years on-air with 30 of the most significant albums in my musical development, today with Julius Eastman. Price's 2nd violin concerto was composed in 1952 just a year before her unexpected death. It was never published nor performed and was unknown until it was found in 2009, in a collection of her manuscripts discovered in a home where she used to reside. Since then, it has been published and received several performances and recordings. We will hear a live recording made with violinist Randall Goosby with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Perhaps this work represents her late style--it is in a single, rhapsodic, movement, with many sudden and unexpected changes in mood and character. It must be wonderful for a violinist to play, and it is certainly wonderful to listen to. The third album by Baba Commandant is probably his funkiest, though still showing Afrobeat and 70's Mandingue influences all joining with traditional Burkinabé music. I first heard the music of composer Julius Eastman with a 2014 recording featuring two of his pieces, performed on four pianos by four Polish pianists and released on a Polish label--an unexpected source for one of the most obscure and fascinating American composers. Eastman was born in 1940 and lived an uncompromising life as a militantly Black and gay activist. This certainly made his life in the rarefied, almost exclusively white career of a contemporary composer very difficult. You can read and hear a lot more of his incredible music in my three part special from 2019: https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41649.html https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41770.html https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/105/41880.html His music was in the minimalist tradition, but it is perhaps the most maximalist minimalist music! Full of huge, thick textures from the four pianos, extremes in dynamics, power, and emotion. If we have time, we will hear both works from the album, "Evil N*" from 1979 and "Gay Guerrilla" from 1980. The former is music of seething, righteous rage, music for Black Lives Matter from 45 years ago! The latter is music of incredible strength and fortitude. This 2014 album is the most recent on my list of 30. When I first heard this album it took my breath away, I listened to these pieces constantly for weeks, opening up a whole new world of music. The 30 for 30 albums we've heard so far (in order of appearance): 1. Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul" Side Effects 2. Ludwig Van Beethoven/Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan et al. "Symphony No. 9" Deutsche Grammophon 3. Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote" Realworld 4. Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski "Unchained" Dux