The Oak of the Golden Dreams
Richard Maxfield is a composer whose impact and reputation relative to his small output is enormous. Finally we are able to hear a full disc of his coupled with works by Harold Budd on this rerelease of a pair of out-of-print recordings originally released on the Advance Recordings label. Fans of Harold Budd's later quiet electronic works will be amazed to hear staunch minimalist works dating from the late '60s and early '70s; the seed of the later work can be found here as can the overriding tonality and sensualism that Budd is best known for. The breadth and vision of Maxfield's four cuts is striking. Composed between 1960 and 1963, Maxfield adapts no particular style, instead skittering about from electronics to tape loops. The disc's centerpiece is his 1961 "Piano Concert for David Tudor," a 12-minute exploration of a wired-up piano. Tiddlywinks pluck amplified strings and gyroscopes whir inside the instrument, releasing an array of sounds you never thought a piano was capable of creating. "Amazing Grace," from 1960, predates James Tenney's early plunderphonic composition,"Collage #1 (Blue Suede)"by a year. It's often been referred to as a seminal plunderphonic work; we're fortunate enough to be able to hear it finally.--Kenneth Goldsmith