Showing posts with label Charles Ives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Ives. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2014

"Recent Musical Scores," by Hans Ostrom

And from our sports and arts desk . . .,
the following recent musical scores:

Beethoven 5, Debussy 3; Buddy Guy, 18, over
Eric Clapton's 4, Bessie Smith outdistancing
Barbara Streisand, 283 to 146; Beyonce

tied with Clara Smith, 102-102; Bill Monroe 98,
Hank Williams, Sr., 83; and finally Charles Ives
edging Benjamin Britten, 31-30, in a very
close match.


hans ostrom 2014



"Piano Ready to Roll," by Hans Ostrom

A piano's lacquered
surface serrates light
from outside, turns it into
a gothic, cubist
rendering
of a keyboard
that looks
a bit like a bar-code.

As music, that image
might be from Monk
or Ives, James P. Johnson or maybe
Chopin
as phrased by Rubenstein. Anyway,
it's all invented and then
rearranged. By all I mean all.

And look, they bolted
this piano to a frame with three
big wheels. That's some serious
industrial-revolution nonsense.

So roll that lovely hunk of thumps,
shadows, and singing strings into
a misplaced bay where your
emotions go sometimes into exile.



hans ostrom 2014