Saturday, May 9, 2009

Albert Fine's fluxfilms (from 1966)

I'm determined to make this the web's Albert Fine hub.

Fluxfilm No. 30, Dance
. (I'm not sure, but the figure in the film is probably James Waring, for whom Fine wrote at least two chamber pieces as accompaniment. One in particular--for oboe and two flutes--is quite lengthy and blends free cadenzas with free counterpoint, and might be worth editing some day.)




I really enjoy Fluxfilm 24 ("Readymade"). What I like about it is that in Fine's composition notebook (er, stave notebook), even in his most experimental period between 1964-1966, he experimented with minimalism, dissonance, rhythmic freedom and the like almost invariably through the lens of more-or-less formalized 2-voice counterpoint. (Here, Philip Glass recalls how exacting Fine was as a teacher, in the strict vein of Boulanger.)

Here, on film, this readymade--is it an upside-down image of a two-legged table?--functions against itself in two voice counterpoint, as if it were a single pitch sampled and set against itself.

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