Sinking of the Titanic: Live Bourges

Gavin Bryars (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 9, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: LTM/Boutique NL
• ASIN: B001VG2MEY
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #101,815 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

2009 CD edition of a celebrated live performance of The Sinking of the Titanic by acclaimed modern British composer Gavin Bryars. Originally released on Les Disques du Crepuscule, this extended 60 minute performance of Bryars' haunting masterpiece was recorded by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble at the French festival Le Printemps de Bourges in April 1990. The performance location was the Chateau D'Eau, a disused water tower on three storeys, in an environment conceived by L'Acad‚mie de Mus‚ologue vocatoire, showing works by French artist Christian Boltanski and also featuring documentation relating to the wreck of the Titanic supplied by divers Taurus International.

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars DEATH'S COLD WAVE I WILL NOT FLEE, July 25, 2009

By	Kerry Leimer (Makawao, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Eno's Obscure label offered the first recording of "The Sinking of the Titanic" -- a shorter version than performed here -- and there have been many performances and recordings since. Now an even forty years on from its initial sketch, the piece has proven itself to be uniquely adaptive, a living work highly responsive to new influences in technology, instrumentation and interpretation. But for a number of reasons this rendition remains my favorite.

While music that cleaves to representational concepts usually ends up ossified and dated, Bryars hits on a few more convincing connections than the typical sort of "fawns represented by cor anglais" romances. That a hymn was played while the ship sank, that the radio operators were transmitting code, all provide distinctly authentic content for the work. Taking into account the acoustical properties of water and, in this instance performing the work in an abandoned three-story water tower, makes an even more immediate connection between source and execution, in an ideal context. But mostly, the sombre character of the work, slower here and undramatically elegiac, set in this particular environment with its acoustical appropriateness to the subject combined with a longer, more subtle entropic arc, make the Bourges performance a genuine reference point for the work.

Together with another recent Crepuscule reissue -- "Hommages" -- these two recorded works encapsulate many of Bryars' earliest and most lasting preoccupations: the use of found material (here, snippets of the Hymn "Autumn" among the many sources quoted on "Hommages" and fully developed with "Jesus' Blood..." and later still in exploring Medieval Lauds with his "O Mi Lasso" suite) integration with specific acoustical spaces ( the recent "Chambre d'écoute") and "automatic" solutions, Bryars persists in systematically delving into every implication of his aesthetic, with remarkable result. And in many ways, though the interpretations may have no practical end, it all starts with this piece.