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All Is Calm, All Is Bright (Album 2023)

by Arthur Durkee

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Benjamin Doran
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1.
Fantasie-Impromptu on "Stille Nacht" 07:09
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2.
In Dulci Jubilo 04:21
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3.
A Rose Blooming 02:48
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4.
Fantasia on "Hodie" 04:37
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5.
Sleep 05:40
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6.
The Holly and the Ivy / Sussex Carol 03:27
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7.
Winter Starlight 04:57
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8.
Motetus Gabriel 03:54
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9.
Coventry Carol 03:29
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10.
Silent Night Waltz 04:44
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about

All Is Calm, All Is Bright (album version 2023)

This album is a re-release of the EP I released a year ago, with new tracks added to make it a full length album. All five of the original EP's tracks are here, with one of them remastered. I have added five brand new tracks.

The album is heavily centered around my interest in Medieval and Renaissance music for Christmas, Yule, and the syncretic inclusions from the old religions into the new. I was a composition major in music school, with minors in Medieval and Renaissance music, music history, and ethnomusicology.

I set myself the task last year to make an album of instrumental Xmas music played entirely on my latest principal instrument, the NS/Stick. I had been playing NS/S for about a year, and this was a chance to dig deeper into its playing, learn more, and present what I had learned on recording.

I beg your indulgence for leaving in some of the rough edges on this, my first solo NS/Stick recording, rather than polishing all the music to a high gloss. I was up against the deadline of releasing this as a holiday music recording. Rather than spend an extra month or two on each track, I did the best I could in the time available.

Some of this music is pure improvisation recorded live to disc in the recording studio, and only slightly edited. Some other tracks are multitrack renditions of, for example, four-part Renaissance counterpoint, all parts played on NS/Stick.

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"All Is Calm, All Is Bright" features original arrangements of ancient carols were inspired by melodic and harmonic styles found in early music.

I minored in Medieval & Renaissance music (Early Music), music history, and ethnomusicology in music school. I did a special study on Medieval English Christmas carols. I was and still am a fan of the Early Music revival movement that began when I was young.

Thus my choice to make an album of Christmas music revolved which Medieval and Renaissance carols I would like to record. The carols presented here suit my purpose to showcase the most ancient of carols alongside the modern, including both an original piece, "Winter Starlight," and a mood piece inspired by "Silent Night."

This album circles around the mood of midwinter mystery evoked by "Stille Nacht" ("Silent Night"), one of the quietest, prettiest carols of all. This carol indeed gives the album its title phrase.

For me, the mystery of the deep midwinter time is one of stillness, of peace, of sleep. It is a late-night mood, when you are outdoors, bundled up warm, looking up at the midnight sky full of stars in their millions, bright enough to light the snowy land around you, midnight-blue and ice-silver. The air is crisp, clear, and cold, your breath frosts, and mist is over the lake. Everything is calm, the land and the very air are still.

That's the mood that inspired this album, and I hope can be felt throughout, even underpinning the more upbeat carols heard.

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“Silent Night” is a beloved Xmas carol, that conveys a mood of quiet in the midst of a cold midwinter midnight. It has a deceptively simple tune that lends itself to many different interpretations and arrangements. As a lifelong choral singer, I have performed a half-dozen or more Xmas and winter solstice pieces that are arrangements of “Silent Night,” or fantasies on it, or quote it as part of the music’s overall fabric. People immediately recognize the tune, and what they are meant to feel.

The three original instrumental pieces on this album are re-interpretations, explorations of the mood of, arrangements of, or original fantasies upon “Silent Night.” I focus on the mystery, the midnight cold, the timeless and panentheistic aspects of the carol’s mood and narrative. These original pieces are improvisations recorded live in the studio, or structured improvisations evoking “Silent Night.”

“Fantasie-Impromptu on Stille Nacht” is a set of variations using fragments of melody and harmony from the carol, but without actually playing the carol in any complete form.

“Winter Starlight” is an original piece inspired by the image of starlight playing on a snow-covered landscape, crystal-sharp in the very cold air, in the absolute stillness of a deep midwinter midnight. This piece explores the mood of the deep winter night evoked by the carol, without making any musical reference to or quotation from it.

A late night mood, when you are outdoors, bundled up warm, looking up at the midnight sky full of stars in their millions, bright enough to light the snowy land around you, midnight-blue and ice-silver. The air is crisp, clear, and cold, your breath frosts, and mist is over the lake.

“Sleep” is an ambient improvisation using a live-looping layered ambient-music process I developed for my ambient album Ambire Musica, inspired by the long tape-delay ambient loop processes developed by Brian Eno. “Sleep” was recorded live in studio using loops and layered effects.

I conclude the album with “Silent Night Waltz,” an arrangement that foregrounds the waltz-like characteristics of the carol. The original carol was after all written in a slow waltz tempo.

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Each track on this album has additional notes about the piece, its origins and making.

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credits

released December 22, 2023

Arthur Durkee: NS/Stick, loops, effects

Produced, Engineered, Mixed & Mastered by Arthur Durkee
at Dragonsweyr, November 2022 & December 2023
© 2022, 2023 Arthur Durkee Arts. All Rights Reserved.

Artwork & design © 2022 by Arthur Durkee Arts

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Arthur Durkee Ann Arbor, Michigan

Arthur Durkee is a composer & songwriter who records & performs on Chapman Stick, bass, analog modular synths, bamboo & wood flutes, keys, frame drums, and voice. He has won awards for composed, notated music as well as for his recordings, & is a published poet, & designer & illustrator. ... more

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