Possibly the most unearthly piece I've ever heard, "The Ghost Sonata" presents a psychotic, twisted tale of suicide that sends gooseflesh across my skin. The theory behind the album, written between 1980-91, was to create a horrifying soundtrack by allowing the artists of Tuxedomoon to write their own suicides. The pieces were then put over an even more ghastly opera, which contained no lyrics, except for the pale words spoken during "The Funeral Of A Friend". The suicides included drinking, excessive romanticism, wrist slashing, and the loneliness of drowning. The video was then filmed in Brussels.
At times, the album is a beautiful, eerie lullaby only to dissolve into sounds of gloom and despair. The opening track fades in and the near-dead narration tells of the suicides and funerals that will take place. It then leads into the gorgeous, uncanny piano, and somber violin that transforms "The Ghost Sonata" into what it is. The instruments at times shriek and then reach such lows they seem to creep. Their presence sustains the bleak feel of the entire piece. The album also contains clarinets, oboes, flutes, and cellos to enhance the theatrical emotion throughout.
They come together during "An Affair At The Soiree" and create a ghastly carnival sound that conjures a dark visual of some haunted carousel operating under its own power. During "Music Number Two" and "The Cascade", the piano often reminds me of Chopin with a twist of Nick Cave, and the violins create the emotion of a funeral with slow, grieving slides of the bow across strings. The orchestration by Blaine Reininger provides additional coldness to the already dismal soundtrack of suicide. The music never goes over the top with its grim feel, but also never reaches a point of safety.
At first, I was in fear that such titles as "Funeral Of A Friend", "A Drowning", and "A Mystic Death" would probably give me some gothic vampire sound reminiscent of early horror movies. "The Ghost Sonata" was done with such beauty that I go so far as to call it a masterpiece. The musical classification is somewhere between classical and theatre and there are merely two emotions found among the elegance, fear and mourning. The beauty encountered is spiritually uplifting at times and warped at others. The pieces are theatrically perfect and now I start my quest to find the Brussels video that currently eludes me. Written by Nolan Shigley.
"The Ghost Sonata is intense, dramatic, chilling - as ambient as a knife in your back" (Select, 3/91);
"Ghost Sonata is a tiny masterpiece of sorts, and captures Tuxedomoon's rarified, quixotic melancholy at its peak" (Q Magazine, 5/91)
Early in 1982 Tuxedomoon, then featuring the classic lineup of Steven Brown, Blaine L Reininger, Peter Principle, Bruce Geduldig and Winston Tong, were invited to perform by friend Velia Papa at the Polverigi Theatre Festival in Italy.
The San Franciscan group had already based in Europe a full year, which had seen them follow up the astonishing 'Desire' set with two further albums and a clutch of singles. Both 'Divine' (the soundtrack to Maurice Be'jart's Greta Garbo-inspired ballet) and the 'Suite En Sous-Sol' were more selfconsciously avant garde projects than the band had dared attempt while still riding the crest of the New Wave back home, and the group were glad to take advantage of the greater artistic liberty Europe seemed happy to grant them. Indeed projects such as these, along with a formidable reputation as live performers, saw Tuxedomoon at the height of their acclaim, popularity, and artistic power.
Little wonder then that the Italian offer arrived. Geduldig expands : "It all started when we were approached for a project by two different parties : Image Video in Brussels and In Teatro in Polverigi. We imagined creating a body of music and at the same time shooting an episodic story on video. We would then transfer the video to 16mm film for large live projection, and add taped musique concrete and an orchestra. I don't exactly recall the inception, except that Winston liked the title 'Ghost Sonata'. We skimmed a copy of the original play by August Strindberg and mentally tossed it in the trash, because it was a kind of traditional piece complete with a deranged grandfather, so we only kept the fin de sie`cle time frame and the title. Late one night before we'd actually started Winston and I were driving and he said something to the effect of letting each member write his own suicide, and that would be the text. I liked that immediately. At some point we all decided to do 'an opera without words', an idea that seemed pretty reasonable at the time, and only much later struck me as being strange."
In fact the seeds of the scheme were sown as early as May 1981, when Tuxedomoon acted as artists in residence for a project put together by The Midlands Group in Nottingham, England. The programme for the show lists 'Ghost Sonata - First and Second Movements' and had combined 'experimental music and theatre', involving members of the local community alongside trained professionals. Lofty ambitions perhaps, but it should be remembered that both Tong and Geduldig came from a performance art background as opposed to rock (Tong having won a prestigious Obie award for his 'Bound Feet' piece in New York), and this factor, coupled with Tuxedomoon's inherent reluctance to remain a simple rock group, made the In Teatro offer one they could hardly refuse. Initial pre-production work on both the music score and video took place in Brussels in the Spring. Reininger began painstakingly orchestrating the neoclassical sections of the music score while the rest of the group and their crew worked on filming at Image. Geduldig again : 'In the months it took to do all this things got hazy and crazy. It was unknown territory in a lot of ways, we were working with very little money, living in friend's apartments, working probably twice as hard as was necessary if we'd only known 'how to' and 'what' we were doing. In the ensuing hustle to get everyone else's story on tape we never did arrange for someone to film mine, so we decided that I was already dead at the beginning of the story. The idea ultimately was to film the live performance, record the music, then put it all together to make a final video package and album.'
Musically, the soundtrack to 'Ghost Sonata' is one of the best self-contained bodies of work that the group produced, and is certainly their most ambitious. Essentially it comprises eight distinct pieces, five of which form a distinct suite : The Ghost Sonata, Music Number Two, The Cascade/Fall, Basso Pomade, and Licorice Stick Ostinato. The title track had already been composed as far back as the 'Desire' sessions in November 1980, while 'Music #2' had been taped in March '82 for the 'Time To Lose' ep. The other three sections seem to have arisen during improvisations at the time of the Be'jart ballet . The three electronic pieces (An Affair at the Soiree, Les Odalisques and Unsigned Postcard) were specially composed however, as were the sound effects and musique concrete (including bird songs, water, thunderstorms and a distressed record stylus). Via this roundabout route the classic Tuxedomoon alchemy of melody and noise was therefore repeated, though on a far grander scale than ever before.
Early in July the company finally packed down to Ancona in Italy to prepare for the six full shows scheduled for the end of the month, with lighting specialist Anne Militello flown in specially from New York. Geduldig : "We set about editing, constructing costumes and wigs, decor etc, rehearsing the music and orchestra, and also writing and rehearsing the live stage action. Writing the stage action afterwards is a little back-assed, but in fact that was the way Winston and I had always worked - start with the soundtrack, then figure the action." Back-assed it may have been, but even that was preferable to the half-assed raw material the group found awaiting them. Reininger had earlier made the mistake of informing In Teatro that his orchestrations were 'easy', with the result that the first orchestra supplied consisted solely of schoolchildren aged between eight and twelve... Replacements had to be found quickly before the 'Polverigi Strings' could embark on a week of solid rehearsal. Meanwhile the promised state-of-the-art recording facilities turned out to be nothing more hi-tech than an ancient two-track Revox (microphones not included) and a PA system consisting solely of guitar amps. Thus over the next few weeks soundman Gilles Martin and assistant Frankie Lievaart would spend more time hunting down and repairing malfunctioning equipment that they would actually recording anything on it. Preparations for the onstage performance weren't without their problems either. Nina Shaw : "While we rehearsed individual scenes and had daily production meetings we never had a full dress rehearsal, or even a complete runthrough. Winston was always very convincing and reassuring about going onstage without being fully prepared. 'Don't worry,' he'd say, 'There is no such thing as a mistake. Everything is part of the process of live performance.' Oh so easy for him to say... most of us had never been on a stage before. We wrote a giant cue sheet and nailed it up backstage. Lisa Dutton was there to help us through the costume changes and Patrick Rocques to push us on at the right moment... sometimes."
In fact the first and last dress rehearsal before Polverigi was enacted in front of an audience on Ancona's Piazza de Papa on the night of July 22nd (see front cover image on this record). This free show went relatively well however, the sunken piazza and the beautiful floodlit castle above providing the perfect epic setting... almost. Reininger is fond of recalling the drunken youths who launched a large jar of mayonnaise onto the black polythene-swathed stage from the ramparts above.
At this point it seems pertinent to list the onstage action in relation to the soundtrack :
Music : Action :
The Funeral of a Friend a distant graveyard
The Ghost Sonata a funeral service for the director, an unexplained death.
Catalyst postcards from dead cities.
An Affair at the Soiree intrigues, flirtations and an embarrassing public skirmish.
Music Number Two JJ walks into the sea a la Virginia Woolf.
the fates search on a beach for JJ.
A Drowning reflections on a polythene ocean.
JJ meets a giant fish. a death by drowning.
The Cascade BLR ends the party amidst too many empty bottles.
a death by drink.
A Mystic Death paintings as voyeurism.
SB gazes into a crystal ball and is horrified to see his youth fade
a death by hanging
Basso Pomade an unexplained argument between PP and WT ends in hypnosis.
Licorice Stick Ostinato PP hallucinates, mutating faces of friends...
The Laboratory ...and embarks on a long inner search for deadly knowledge.
SL shrinks and becomes bottled. PP eventually drinks her.
a death by poisoning.
Les Odalisques a mystic ritual of obsession and role changing in which WT, as the sorcerer, melts into a foggy grave.
a death by devourment, or a death by magic.
An Unsigned Postcard NS, attended by an already dead WT, sees her death in a vanity mirror beckoning her, she slashes her wrists with lipstick.
a death by loss of blood.
Music Number Two (Reprise) all the cast joins together for a tableau picnic. The living dead re-enact De'jeu^ner sur l'herbe as the bride is stripped bare.
Next day the company set up at the Polverigi site and filmed both the beginning and finale of the piece, as seen in the commercially released video version. Disaster struck at the first of the two full shows the following night however, when torrential rain forced the company to abandon the stage a third of the way in. Such are the hazards of open air performance in the middle of a forest, though the following night the second show passed without incident. Tong and Geduldig also performed two routines independently, "Frankie and Johnny" and "The Birth and Death of Stars". The Ghost Sonata then moved on to a football stadium in Giulanova for a further "opera-rock" performance on the 27th, but again it was ruined out and instead the group played a straight gig as Tuxedomoon the next night by way of compensation. The final show took place successfully in Modena on the 29th, and it's from here that the basic tracks for Licorice Stick Ostinato, Basso Pomade and Music Number Two (Reprise) have been taken for this record.
After all was said and done, and rained out, it seemed like an awful lot of blood, sweat and tears to shed for just three performances out of a projected five, with the sense of wasted opportunity compounded even further by the lack of any usable soundtrack on which to base an album due to the equipment problems. True, some nice visual material was captured on film, but as is reported elsewhere in these notes by the group themselves the Ghost Sonata drained Tuxedomoon of a great deal of energy, divided its members artistically as well as musically, and lead ultimately to Reininger's departure six months later. As watersheds went it had proven a leaky one, the overall show being unanimously judged as lasting way too long, and with its sheer scale only serving to further magnify its weaknesses. The simple truth was that Tuxedomoon and company, in attempting to metamorphosize into a multi-media theatre group, had overreached themselves badly.
Not that the project was entirely buried. A video version emerged in 1986 via Cabaret Voltaire's DoubleVision outlet, and this release may be reissued complete with improved audio soundtrack in the near future. The score's component parts fared better however. Late in 1982 Brown recorded The Cascade (as "The Fall") for his first solo album, Music For Solo Piano, with Reininger guesting. Then in January 1983 the BRT radio station in Brussels commissioned recordings of Basso Pomade, Licorice Stick Ostinato and Music Number Two (Reprise), performed by the Flemish Chamber Orchestra of Brussels and produced by Wim Mertens. These three short tracks were later released in Reininger's 'Instrumentals' album in 1988, though the highly professional recordings arguably lack a little soul. In 1987 Reininger also reworked Les Odalisques as "Japanese Dream" on his "Byzantium" set. All these records were released on Les Disques du Crepuscule and remain in print for those interested in checking out alternate versions. Curiously the exquisite title track itself has never before been released, though much of the Ghost Sonata suite remains a staple of the piano and violin show that Brown and Reininger occasionally perform to this day (as documented on the live mini cd '1890-1990 : One Hundred Years Of Music').
This new, complete, 1991 soundtrack is therefore the fulfilment of many a Tuxedomoon fan's wildest dreams, to whom The Ghost Sonata has become as mythic a project as the Beach Boys' long-lost 'Smile'. Tracks 2,5,7,12 and 13 are new recordings by the band taped between November and December 1990, while 10,11 and 14 are based on location recordings from the 1982 Modena show, extensively overdubbed by Reininger in October 1990. All other tracks and sound effects date from recordings made for the original performance, though in fact some of this raw material even dates back to glory days in San Francisco.
Whether or not this record proves to be the last 'new' release from Tuxedomoon, The Ghost Sonata remains, in 1991 as in 1982, and in keeping with its theme, a truly timeless work.
James Neiss, Brussels 12/90
TUXEDOMOON : THE GHOST SONATA
the music :
Steven Brown, Peter Principle, Blaine L. Reininger
Orchestration by Blaine L. Reininger
the orchestra :
Emanuela Piccini, Christina Ottavi, Sandro Rossini (first violins)
Sandra Steffanini, Sabrina Franca, Marina Santoro (second violins)
Marcello Galli, Graziano Gerboni (clarinets), Roberto Mori (oboe), Gregorio Bardini (flute), Francesco Guidobaldi (double bass), Graziano Benvenutti, Antonella Lisi (cellos)
sound :
Gilles Martin, Frankie Lievaart
the performance :
Winston Tong, Bruce Geduldig, JJ La Rue, Saskia Lupini, Nina Shaw, Peter Principle, Patrick Roques, Steven Brown, Lisana Dutton, Frankie Lievaart.
lighting :
Anne Militello
the cinema :
Bruce Geduldig, Frankie Lievaart, Saskia Lupini, Anne Militello, Peter Principle, Winston Tong
with :
Steven Brown, Myriam Freson, JJ La Rue, Gilles Martin, Blaine L. Reininger, Nina Shaw
production :
Tuxedomoon & Company, In Teatro Polverigi
special thanks :
Katalin Kolosy, Image Video Brussels, Martine Jawerbaum, Madame Zaza of Marseille
photography :
Roberto Nanni, Saskia Lupini
THE GHOST SONATA :
Notes on the notes... Brought to you by Peter Principle.
I bought all the surgical gauze within walking distance of the rehearsal studio while adding the finishing touches to the bicycle/horse...
Nino the roadie...
The press conference; and afterwards to be rained out...
Nobody on stage knowing what to do...
The wigs...
The suicides :
Blaine - drinking, the comfort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Steven - the ritual, excessive romanticism.
Peter - psychedelic spiritualism, disillusion, alienation.
Winston - fades in the haze, mystification, legerdemain.
Nina - wrist slashing, theatrical exaggeration.
JJ - drowning, loneliness.
Bruce - didn't get in the film.
Frankie caught appendicitis...
Winston told everyone to move in slow motion...
Lisa and Gilles tried real hard...
Anne did a good job but was undoubtedly miserable.
Take the money and run :
One of my own personal fantasies for Tuxedomoon was that it should all turn out like Hal Roach's "Little Rascals"; that somehow while in the process of having a good lime playing at being serious, we would inadvertently be responsible for something interesting. The Ghost Sonata seemed to me to be just one of those opportunities as we had already been commissioned to do the music for a Be'jart ballet, and had been invited to do a residence in the Midlands of England at Nottingham.
It was basically assumed that anything we did would be acceptable lust an long as any outsiders were directed to ask questions of Winston, who always knew how to describe things without exaggeration, but with an oversight which made everything appear as if it was all proceeding according to some plan.
I myself felt that we worked towards realizing some sort of 'garage-band theatre', something like an alternative Robert Wilson. People were always comparing us to 'Magic Theatre', whose name I knew from its place on the 'Silver Apples' record cover, but otherwise I knew nothing about "theatre", hence my naive notions about what we were doing. Garage solutions always excite me and I'm sure that if we had continued to work out the problems of merging film techniques with live performance, and theatrical lighting with musical performance, we would finally have accomplished something. But as was already evident behind the scenes on the Ghost Sonata project there was a developing hierarchy of values; compromises that would eventually stratify Tuxedomoon and thus render it an ineffective unit. It was, in fact, for me a painful experience to watch this process at that time, and I remember putting my head down as if in a storm and forging ahead with my chosen task within the context of propmaking, continuing to work on the design and construction of the bicycle/horse skeleton that JJ was to ride around onstage during the part called 'Equestrians'. Or making up some way to do something interesting for the video, which also appeared to me to be a great opportunity for learning things we could all do together, as I had understood that the members of Tuxedomoon wanted to expand always into new media. But it turned out otherwise in practice. Much of our energy was lost in the period following the Ghost Sonata i.e. the departure of various group members, and the more intensive stratification within the group e.g. Musos, and others... So in that way the project was a watershed. Actually you could say that it was around this time that Tuxedomoon decided not to live up to their group destiny, and therefore to forgo grace.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The following, carefully typed out from a badly deteriorated Xerox of a handwritten original, appears to be the first proposal to Polverigi, sent in early February 1982 :
GHOST SONATA. A Performance of the First Studies for 'Operations', inspired by the play of August Strindberg, with music by Tuxedomoon. Adaption and treatment by Bruce Geduldig and Winston Tong. Production scheduled for World Premiere at In Teatro Polverigi, Summer 1982.
Foreword : Before : The Delineation of Rhapsody
From concept to construct : Overnight. By divine decree. We begin during a revolution. Thousands are banding up and so did we. But from the start we were destined to be no part of any ordinary venture, despite our love in common for popular music. We had some imagination and enough wit to pass over our abundant stores of morbidity and ennui. So, astonishing even ourselves at each unexpected turn of phrase, it was quickly established that we were not to be labelled. Nor were we to be denied any liberties. Civil or not, we would take them or leave them as we saw fit, undermining out fear of failure in accord with an unpronounced ultimatum dictating our lives in public art. Going somewhere terribly fast, every move contradicting the last, grasping for the elusive, and too soon becoming aware that it was our own tail we were chasing. A rhapsody for the hopeless desire consuming all young idols.
During : The Formative Years
Understanding how and why : How to get out of professional ruts and why paradox was successfully driving us mad. Victims of the dance. Ancient in our youth, hating today what we loved yesterday and vice-versa tomorrow. But we always managed to get what we wanted. And it worked, it was happening, what we had imagined had come to pass. Here we were at the apex of creation, a new art forming as we weaned ourselves of the crust of the past. An unparalleled combining of vision and action and music, possessed of the force of spontaneous combustion produced with the most sophisticated balance of intuition and discipline.
After : Parallels Crossing
Witness the impossible : But still abusing the privilege by allowing an internal problem to exist, somehow the music was not integrated as totally to the visual performance at the visual performance to the music. Unyielding music, a sovereign form, born without sightlines, blind to the imbalance it caused, for which the only solution was to begin a new process, to compose a new equation for the progress of a perfect union of sound and vision. And in the realm of all possibilities even the impossible occurs, even parallel lines meet and cross, at a given time in a given space.
Manifesto :
Status quo : After years of a limited collaboration which has brought us to the present state of our art, we find it imperative to create an entirety new context in which to further develop the techniques we have discovered and exploited in concert. As a group of artists and musicians involved in the process of expediting more sublime methods for communicating the transformative passions, we have realized that a radical departure from what has become the usual means of expression is of vital importance and perhaps long overdue. Form has followed function as far as possible and held true through countless representations, but the corporate body senses that this standard transmission is only the beginning of an endless affair, an intrigue requiring mutation and capitulation ad infinitum. For the merging of music with cinema, conventions of theatre and performance concepts seem to us the very potent ground for a new form, containing at least the same universal appeal as that of classical opera and at best an impact that will supersede it.
The Poetic Leap : to prime ourselves for the greater work we will dare to create a lesser one to begin with, meeting as many of the requisite primary challenges as our muses have to offer. So having arrived at the precipice we leap and we precipitate poetic justice with our fall. And upon our sudden arrival we find ourselves penetrating the bottom of the meditative pool, at the surface of which floats the body of August Strindberg among others. Together we listen to the opening of the ghost sonata, haunting the air of a still summer night, mingled with the sounds of distant voices and the whirring of projectors. And what we see remains to be seen.
Excerpt from 'Operations' :
...the next best thing to death/resurrection/in the living room which has furnishings of eternal bliss/even the oblivion surrenders/to the final rushes of modern art nailed to the fourth wall/ but the operator has misplaced everyone on your conference call/your neglected TV ghosts/ in it's squalor it becomes a Deus Ex Machina/it delivers a beautiful recitative lamenting the lost magic of words/it transmits a violent program in which spirits play games people play...
Projection :
A Scene From 'Ghost Sonata' :
Shafts of light slash the bare white expanse of a stage, a featureless cubicle of indefinite size. A shadow appears, the shadow of a girl made visible only by her shadow. She is white as her surroundings. She speaks without moving her lips. A painted iris appears on the screen behind her. Gradually she acquires her features, which are cinematically projected onto her face and body lending her a luminous flickering character as she slowly crosses the stage in a precise manner and a sad sweet music ripens in the air. The body projected onto her metamorphoses into a blooming iris, then she is gone, leaving the painted and living irises to fade with the music. In silence, new flowers blossom on the screen and multiply in lapses of time. A man's voice speaks about a girl. His face appears amongst the words which float across space. Then only his eyes can be seen, scrutinizing, fantasizing, as he watches someone across the room. The girl is suddenly back with the irises in her hands, walking to the centre of the stage. The man appears with a vase and they meet. Then they are gone without warning, their conversation fading after them, drifting out over the stage, leaving only the flowers in a vase to mark their passing.
**********
After this there followed some very rough estimates about budget and about studio and equipment requirements, and other logistics like transport and housing etc. The only reason I wanted to bring attention to this document is that, especially on page one of this rendering, it seemed to be extremely relevant. It reads like a synopsis of our difficulties and inner struggles as I've tried to describe them, but Winston's foreword seems to be a premonition of what would happen as much as it was a challenge to us all to see that it didn't.
P.P.
RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS
I remember the damn hot sweaty afternoons wandering empty streets in downtown Ancona.
I remember Blaine and JJ playing George and Martha from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for a bemused Saturday evening crowd on the piazza.
I remember me destroying my dormitory room, smashing the lamp, throwing the chair out the window.
I remember being on top of the hill looking over the city the night Italy won the world cup and the gangs threatening Bruce thinking he was German.
I remember one of the crew being caught red-handed with a large portion of the sound system in his van and brazenly denying any wrong doing until the end.
I remember Frankie being so sick in bed all day and night and no-one knowing he had appendicitis.
I don't remember much about the show except it was dark, the stage bathed in dark blue and spectral white figures striking long poses and occasionally moving around slowly, so I guess the performance lived up to the title.
(Steven Brown)
Scene : The Waltz...
(Lucky me - I had Winston for a partner)
Me : "Oh help, I think my underwear is slipping."
Winston : "How seriously?"
Me : "Quite! They're around my knees."
We reached the wings just as my lace pantelettes reached my ankles. I stepped out of them and we finished the dance.
**********
Scene : Petit de'jeu^ner sur l'herbe...
Suddenly I realised that I had no idea what the cue for my entrance was.
Winston : "When the violins swell."
Right! So there I sat with my shadow projected on one screen while my suicide played on another, hoping desperately that I would recognize swelling violins.
I didn't.
(Nina Shaw)
Well we worked two months on this show and then after about thirty minutes at the premiere at Polverigi a huge storm came and the screens blew away and it started to rain and we had to stop. We went and ate dinner afterwards I think...
(Gilles Martin)
Dark old theatre like in the old movies... at evening full of rats.
Little bats on stage in between the ancient cathedral towers... starry skies.
A few months ago I found my diary of these very intense times while moving house. After reading for several hours I decided to burn it for the very reason that such an event should become legendary in the minds of the people as time goes by, as well as the fact that the Ghost Sonata had been like a fire - too intense and burning everybody.
(Saskia Lupini)
I was dressed in an all-white 19th Century riding costume, complete with genuine equestrian ballet slippers - sitting astride a ghost/bicycle horse lovingly made by Peter Principle and waiting to ride through the split screen. On the other side of the screen was a sea of black plastic. Bursting dramatically through the screen I remembered there were no brakes and little to no steering due to the ribcage of my skeletal steed. Careening towards the orchestra pit - a two metre drop - Blaine, conducting, glanced up with a look of naked terror. Fortunately for Blaine and the orchestra a large p.a. cable under the plastic brought me to a painful halt and their pizzicato hell to an end.
(JJ La Rue)
I must apologise for the fact that I am completely unable to natter merrily away about my fond memories of The Ghost Sonata for the simple reason that I have none. A search of my remaining brain cells for such rosy memories or sidesplitting anecdotes consistently comes up empty. The period of time in question represented a low ebb in my personal life, one of the lowest. It's all better now though, honest.
The very words "Ghost Sonata" immediately evoke for me the daily assault on the ancient street which ran up the north face of an alpine precipice. Day followed carefree day, as my blistered feet trudged up that street paved with white-hot barbed wire, and my flesh was cauterized by the crematorium temperatures of the incandescent Italian sun. One thing and one thing only drove me on as I sweated out the rivers of alcohol in which I was attempting to drown myself. At the top of that hell-spawned street, in the cool depths of a public theatre, and honest-to-god orchestra, my first, sat there arrayed in the traditional fashion, awaiting my baton. My long cherished dream of conducting my very own orchestra playing my own orchestrations of my own compositions had been realized. Granted, I felt more like Mr Hensley, my Junior High Orchestra teacher, than I did Herbert Von Karajan, but there it was. One prayer answered. One down, three hundred and fifty million to go.
(Blaine L. Reininger)
I see the suicide angle as a kind of stripped down perspective of the way we all always worked together : each person doing what he or she had to do. And I suppose The Ghost Sonata was a turning point for us, an attempt that succeeded on some levels and failed on others, but ultimately polarized and separated us artistically.
(Bruce Geduldig)
TUXEDOMOON
A GHOST SONATA
THERE IS A BODY FLOATING IN AIR
FUNERAL GATHERING MUCH DESPAIR
THEN MOURNERS OFF FOR A NIGHT OF CHEER
OR WHATEVER
BREATHLESS AT THE CONCERT
SMART CUTTING FIGURES DANCING IN AIR
& WILTING IN THE SMOKY ROOM
ONE FLEUR DU MUR BREAKS FREE
RUNS FREE OF THE PAST
PAST THE DARK CAR IN THE DRIVEWAY
THE EMPTY CARS LEFT AT DAWN ON THE BEACH
AT LAST SHE IS OUT OF REACH
OF THE ONE WHO DRINKS HIS CURSE AWAY AT HOME
& THERE SHE GOES INTO SEA FOAM
& GRACES LOST TO THE SIGHT OF THE WORLD
SEARCH FOR SOMETHING MORE PRECIOUS THAN LOVE
THE LOSS OF WHICH IS KILLING HIM
LIFE'S LABORS LOST IN HIS MUSICAL HELL
ANOTHER DIES RANTING AT HIS MASTER'S VOICE
FROM CRYSTAL BALL A CHOICELESS CHOICE
& ANOTHER GRABS AT THE SECRET
BEFORE WHICH THE WORLD DISAPPEARS
DEATH AN INFUSION OF ALL HIS WORST FEARS
& IN A ROOM OF HER OWN
THE POSTCARD VIEW
INCITES INVOLUNTARY ODALISQUES
A PERSEVERANCE OF ABANDON & DESIRE
HER HEAD ON FIRE
REMITTED BY A TWIST OF PEN IN FIST
YOU SITTING THERE
WITH YOUR BACK TO THE WORLD
YOU WAIT IN FEAR
FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR
IN A QUICK COACH & SIX
THE WOMEN COME
TO CROWN THEIR QUEEN
BRIDE OF THE NIGHT AT ONE WITH THE STARS
THE RIDDLING SPHINX WITH HER TWISTED TALES
EVEN THE MAGICIAN FAILS TO AMUSE
HE PULLS A SUICIDE OUT OF HIS HAT
A GIRL WHO'S SLASHED BY REFLECTION'S LACK
O THE MIRROR DRAWS A BLANK
& THE MASTERMIND OF ALL THESE ILLUSIONS
IS KILLED BY CONTROL
& PRECISION
& THE SUMMER COMES AGAIN
BRINGING POPPIES AMONGST THE GRAVES
& WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY
FOR A DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE
DEATH IN THE FAMILY FLOCK OF DOVES
BODIES DANCING MUYBRIDGE ZOETROPE
STATUES DISAPPEARANCES
THE POLTERGEISTS PLAYING WITH DOLLS
BODIES WALKING GOING TO A FUNERAL
ODALISQUES SLEIGHT OF HAND
TIME LAPSE FLOATING BODY
SCHOOL OF FISH SUNDAY PAINTER
LIGHT EMANATING FROM A BOOK CONJURING SPIRITS
A WINDY AFTERNOON FAN DANCE
MASQUERADE BEHIND THE SCENES
KITESTRINGS & JUMPROPES TRANSFORMATIONS
THE MAGICIANS HAT BY THE SEA
ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES WALKING UP WALLS
LIGHT EMANATING FROM A HAT THE YOUNG SCIENTIST
WHISPERING SECRETS ASTRAL PROJECTION
GHOSTS GETTING DRESSED FOR AN OCCASION
A ROOM OF ONES OWN WRITING A LETTER
THE LAST DANCE WALKING ON AIR
SUICIDE SEVEN VEILS THE FACES
EQUESTRIANS AT THE OPERA
BODIES WALKING KITESTRINGS & JUMPROPES
GETTING DRESSED FOR AN OCCASION
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST AT THE OPERA
ODALISQUES GOING TO A FUNERAL
WRITING A LETTER DISAPPEARANCES
WHISPERING SECRETS BEHIND THE SCENES
LIGHT EMANATING FROM A HAT THE MAGICIANS HAT
THE POLTERGEISTS MASQUERADE
CONJURING SPIRITS WALKING UP WALLS
LIGHT EMANATING FROM A BOOK SCHOOL OF FISH
DEATH IN THE FAMILY ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES
SUNDAY PAINTER FLOATING BODY
TRANSFORMATIONS TIME LAPSE
STATUES EQUESTRIANS
SEVEN VEILS ASTRAL PROJECTION
GHOSTS A ROOM OF ONES OWN
THE FACES BY THE SEA
A WINDY AFTERNOON BODIES DANCING
THE LAST DANCE FAN DANCE
WALKING ON AIR SLEIGHT OF HAND
PLAYING WITH DOLLS SUICIDE
MUYBRIDGE ZOETROPE FLOCK OF DOVES
LIGHT EMANATING FROM A BOOK
WHISPERING SECRETS BODIES WALKING
BODIES DANCING KITESTRINGS & JUMPROPES
FLOCK OF DOVES THE MAGICIANS HAT
SUNDAY PAINTER WALKING ON AIR
A ROOM OF ONES OWN BY THE SEA
ODALISQUES PLAYING WITH DOLLS
SLEIGHT OF HAND THE FACES
TIME LAPSE MASQUERADE
FAN DANCE SUICIDE
FLOATING BODY WRITING A LETTER
STATUES GETTING DRESSED FOR AN OCCASION
ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES GOING TO A FUNERAL
WALKING UP WALLS BEHIND THE SCENES
THE LAST DANCE A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST CONJURING SPIRITS
TRACK LIST
1. THE FUNERAL OF A FRIEND (1.09)
(Principle/Geduldig) (Copyright Control)
2. THE GHOST SONATA (5 .36)
(Brown/Reininger) (Copyright Control)
3. CATALYST (0.42)
(Principle) (Copyright Control)
4. AN AFFAIR AT THE SOIREE (3.39)
(Brown/Reininger/Principle/Geduldig) (Copyright Control)
5. MUSIC NUMBER TWO (2.56)
(Brown/Reininger) (SBK Songs Ltd.)
6. A DROWNING (2.07)
(Brown/Reininger/Principle) (Copyright Control)
7. THE CASCADE (3.02)
(Brown/Reininger) (SBK Songs Ltd.)
8. A MYSTIC DEATH (2.16)
(Principle/Geduldig) (Copyright Control)
9. BASSO POMADE (DOGS LICKING MY HEART) (2.36)
(Brown/Reininger)(Crammed-JoeBoy Music/Hot Gerucht)
10. LICORICE STICK OSTINATO (2.19)
(Brown/Reininger) (Crammed-JoeBoy Music/Hot Gerucht)
11. THE LABORATORY (PARTS 1 & 2) (5.08)
(Principle/Brown/Reininger) (Copyright Control)
12. LES ODALISQUES (4.10)
(Brown/Reininger/Principle/Geduldig) (Copyright Control)
13. AN UNSIGNED POSTCARD (3.06)
(Brown/Reininger/Principle) (Copyright Control)
14. MUSIC NUMBER TWO (REPRISE) (4.18)
(Brown/Reininger) (SBK Songs Ltd.)
SOUNDTRACK PRODUCED BY TUXEDOMOON
EDITED BY PETER PRINCIPLE & JAMES NEISS
ENGINEERS : DREM BRUINSMA, BRUNO DONINI, GILLES MARTIN, JEROME SANDRON
MR REININGER APPEARS COURTESY OF LES DISQUES DU CREPUSCULE
|
