Chrysalis - AVAWAVES (2021)

The Week That Has Been

• Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange, proof that just because it’s new to me doesn’t mean I’ll love it
• the alien soul of James Blake
• Clipping’s modern horrorcore masterclass
• some synthy nostalgia from Waveshaper
• a Jimmy Smith jazz funk masterpiece
• speaking of masterpieces, Morphine

Avawaves and the new “classical”

There’s a lot baked into the word “classical.”

First off, there’s the long history of western orchestral music, or “art music” as it’s called. Stuff that was designed to be created and performed by professionals and consumed by people who were willing to pay those professionals, as distinct from western Europe’s various folk music traditions. This stretches back–depending on where you start counting–600 to 1000 years. That’s a long time. Think about how many times you’d have had to buy the White Album again.

So for sanity’s sake, we tend to divide this massive history into eras. The word “classical” is really just the bookmark name for the period from about JS Bach’s death in 1750 to about the time when Schubert, Beethoven, and their peers gained traction pushing back against the strict rules of what was acceptable up to then around 1820.

In case that isn’t rolling over enough context for you, consider that there are musical traditions in China and India that were developing as far as 3000 years ago that could reasonably be called “classical” but we don’t need to get into that now.

But when you see the word “classical” in most of modern culture, we generally use it to mean anything played with orchestral instruments.

Why? I suspect part of it is that the major periods on either side of “classical”–“baroque” before and “romantic” after–have each developed their own connotations in modern language that would be confusing to people.

Whatever you want to call it, though, there’s a lot of really interesting music being written for traditionally “orchestral” instruments (and piano, which is usually not in an orchestra but is part of the art music canon).

Avawaves is a collaboration between film and television composer Aisling Brouwer and violinist Anna Phoebe. They make highly emotional music with a wide cinematic scope.

It’s never a straight violin sonata type of sound with just piano and violin, but adds other instruments, both organic and electronic, for emphasis and texture.

It’s an engaging listen, if I can just stop thinking about shit like whether or not it’s “classical.”