harold budd

Oak of the Golden

Dreams

Notes

 

The Oak of the Golden Dreams:

 

"Realized on the Buchla Electronic Music System at California Institute of the Arts, then in Burbank, in 1970, was accomplished in a real-time situation: a single performance going directly to magnetic recording tape. The tuning of "the treble cantilena", done wholly by ear, is 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 on E-flat

 

The piece is the last in a series of pieces named for California place names beginning in 1966 with "Noyo", followed by "Boonville" (1967), "California 99" (1969), and Healdsburg Plum" (1970).

 

Couer D'Orr:

 

"Was originally designed in 1969 for sculttor Eric Orr. The two track organ tape was recorded in April 1970, at Immaculate Heart College with the assistance of Dorrance Stalvey and Robert Chadwick. The two tracks - D-flat major ("The Candy Apple Revision") and B-major - were recorded separately and tend to mix in the air when played back steroephonically causing occasional sensations of rapid scalar passages and producing a predominant mixolydian mode on D-flat.

 

Charles Orena, the soprano sax soloist, first performed the piece in May 1970, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This version was recorded by Ken Heller in Los Angeles in December, 1971.

1971