Program #114, October 3 2002: Prisms returns! Revisiting the old...

It is very good to be doing Prisms again! I am so happy to be back, and I thank everyone for their patience during my absence -- a hiatus necessitated by the need to attend to a variety of personal issues. Some of these are now resolved, some are being addressed in an ongoing manner, but everything is managed well enough to make it possible for me to return.

Soon I will resume the various regularly and occasionally scheduled series that have been a mainstay of the program in the past, but the first few programs after my return will be unthemed, even freeform, in nature. For this first sojourn back behind the mic, I decided to ease into things with a recapitulation of some old favorites I hadn't played for a while. I couldn't resist "beginning again" as I began in the very beginning with a true favorite, Varèse' Integrales. Lately the question of whether there can be speech that dissolves the need for speech has been near the forefront of my mind, and that naturally suggests Lucier's I Am Sitting In A Room. Looking toward the impending war in Iraq, I then played an hour's worth of pieces somehow connected with themes of war and peace. Finally, in the last hour, I lightened things up a bit by first commemmorating -- with Komarov's salute to the work of Lev Termen -- the fact that my sister has finally taken the plunge into learning to play the theremin, then closed by using Mehta's reading of Stravinsky (which, though not viewed as a definitive version, has for some reason has lodged in my consciousness as a favorite) in an attempt to shake off the autumn chill.

Next week: a continuation of this program, featuring works that are all new to the Prisms repertoire.