I’ve opened up the listening room for you all. This is a page I will post all (or most) of the best of my classical synthesizer recordings. At the time of this posting, there are 12 pieces, listed below:

Classical/Romantic/Impressionistic

Fetes from Nocturnes by Dubussy

Mars, the Bringer of War from The Planets by Holst

Holst/deCosta – Mercury, the Winged Messenger from The Planets

Holst – Neptune, the Mystic from The Planets

Eine Kleine Nachtmusique Mvt. 4 by Mozart

Organ Music transcribed for Synthesizers

Marcel Dupré – Prelude No. 3

Prelude, Choral et Fugue by Franck

Baroque/Renaissance

Claude la Coucou by Daquin

Noel-X by Daquin

Misc. (TV Themes, Experiments, etc.)

Danny Elfman – Beetle Juice Main Titles

Keeping Up Appearances Theme Music

Fawlty Towers Theme Music

I will post an update whenever I add a new piece.

Feel free to

SEND ME A REQUEST

(by adding a comment to this post)

for a piece you’ve always wanted to hear performed on synthesizers. I will do my best to accommodate.

VISIT THE LISTENING ROOM

Back in 1989 I had a 4am radio show at the local college station, and besides playing artists like Amin Bhatia, Wendy Carlos and Frank Zappa (and any-bloody-thing-else I wanted at that hour), one of the LPs I ran across in the WMPG archives was “The Electronic Spirit of Erik Satie”. It’s the sort of album you might get if you put a group of stoned chamber musicians in the same room as Herbie Hancock with La Salle climbing the walls a la Monty Python.

Notes Relating to the Title: “The Electronic Spirit of Erik Satie” (Music Mystically Inspired)

Satie was convinced that he was a spirit working under the direct guidance of some medieval cleric whose fanatical piety he had inherited from beyond the grave.

This producer is convinced that he is also a spirit working under the direct guidance of Erik Satie, whose eccentricities and mysticisms have guided him throughout the making of this LP.

Further Proof:
A.) The arranger felt the actual presence of Satie in the room with him while he was scoring. (Erik’s spirit would hover around the room and, at times, reach over his shoulder and guide his pencil along the score page, shouting directions in his ear “B flat not B natural, you dummy!”) His worst moment was when he added bars to Satie’s barless music… (the arranger in this case cannot recall having scored any of the pieces in the LP.)
B.) The presence and guidance of Satie’s spirit was never more felt than in the programming and playing of the Moog synthesizer. All the wave forms, modulation mixes, oscillations and permutations have never been duplicated since, and the Moog player, who was entirely unfamiliar with the instrument at the time, has no recollection of having done the album whatsoever!!!!!!!

Beware of the Blog has got MP3s to download in case you haven’t got your own copy of the out-of-print LP from eBay like I (and BotB’s owner) did.

I’ve just joined Classitronic, A SoundCloud group for classical synthesizer music. You’ll notice to the right a SoundCloud drop-box. This is where you, dear reader, can send me your own synthesizer recordings.

Here is my first two postings to the group, a recording of Debussy’s Fetes, from Nocturnes, and Mars from The Planets:

To join the group, head on over to Classitronic at SoundCloud.

Magic Lamp Electronic Bach

I don’t usually go for classical music with added drums, but Magic Lamp has got me dancing with this one, the Concerto No. 2 by Bach. It’s a clever arrangement, and the drums in this case are a mere groove enhancer.

I chose to use analog synthesizer exclusively in this recording, relying mostly on the MiniMoog V from Arturia, and the ES-2 that’s built into Logic Pro, and two Pro-53 instances.

From wikipedia:
The Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525, more commonly known as Eine kleine Nachtmusik (“a small serenade” — rendered more literally but less accurately as “a little night music”[1]), is a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written in 1787 while working on the second act of Don Giovanni in Vienna.[2] It is not known why it was composed.

The work is written for a chamber ensemble of two violins, viola, and cello with optional double bass. It is often performed with more than one person to a part.

From Wikipedia:
Louis-Claude Daquin was born in Paris, to a converted Jewish family from Carpentras originating from Italy (where their name was D’Acquino). One of his great-uncles was a professor of Hebrew at the College de France. Daquin was a musical child prodigy, for he performed for the court of King Louis XIV at the age of six. He was for a while a pupil of Louis Marchand. At the age of 12, he became organist at the Sainte-Chapelle, and in the following year took a similar post at the church of the Petit St. Antoine.

In 1727 Daquin was appointed organist at the church of St. Paul in Paris, besting Jean-Philippe Rameau for the job. Five years later he became organist, succeeding Louis Marchand, at the Cordeliers. In 1739 he became organist to the king. In 1755 he succeeded Antoine Calvière as titular organist at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.

By reputation a dazzling performer at the keyboard, Daquin was much appreciated by the aristocracy and his great expertise at the organ drew considerable crowds to hear him. As a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist, he was known for his “unfaltering precision and evenness”.

Another piece from the Baroque period by Daquin. This time, The Coucou. I first heard this piece in the early-80’s performed on a harpsichord. Here is the score if you want to read along.

From Wikipedia:
Louis-Claude Daquin was born in Paris, to a converted Jewish family from Carpentras originating from Italy (where their name was D’Acquino). One of his great-uncles was a professor of Hebrew at the College de France. Daquin was a musical child prodigy, for he performed for the court of King Louis XIV at the age of six. He was for a while a pupil of Louis Marchand. At the age of 12, he became organist at the Sainte-Chapelle, and in the following year took a similar post at the church of the Petit St. Antoine.

In 1727 Daquin was appointed organist at the church of St. Paul in Paris, besting Jean-Philippe Rameau for the job. Five years later he became organist, succeeding Louis Marchand, at the Cordeliers. In 1739 he became organist to the king. In 1755 he succeeded Antoine Calvière as titular organist at the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.

By reputation a dazzling performer at the keyboard, Daquin was much appreciated by the aristocracy and his great expertise at the organ drew considerable crowds to hear him. As a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist, he was known for his “unfaltering precision and evenness”.

Well here I am, age 38, and doing what I’ve dreamed of since I was nine: making synthesizer recordings! When I was nine, I was introduced to the joys of classical synthesizer music by my grandfather. We would go to his house every Saturday night and have beans and hot-dogs (and the hottest steamed rolls on the planet), then retire to the cellar where my grandfather’s massive stereo system cranked out Switched-On Bach, The Unusual Classical Synthesizer, The Well Tempered Synthesizer, Snowflakes are Dancing, and dozens of other amazing albums that came out of the synthesizer explosion of the early 1970s.

Here’s the album that got me hooked on classical synthesizer music:

And here’s me, lower left, with the snazzy plaid pants, standing with my family in front of the massive stereo that cranked out synthesizer music every Saturday night.

The sounds I heard were magic , pure and simple. Even now, almost 30 years later, I can remember every detail of that cellar room; it’s smells (a charming potpourri of must, cheap furniture and cigarette smoke), it’s 1970s wallpaper, and the stacks of records that lay in the chest held the 100% analog stereo system with it’s magnificent 5′+ homemade speakers.

Back to the present. I now have a state-of-the-art Mac Pro with Logic Pro 8 and more synthesizer power than a hundred Moog Modular equipped studios that dotted the music scene in the 70s. Bliss!

With this blog I will share with you the recordings I have made of Classical (read: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionist and modern compositions, including some of my own) Synthesizer music.