Larry Polansky’s freeHorn is an album of three shape-shifting chamber works. The textural, ever morphing freeHorn, performed by an octet of mixed instruments, and the pulsing electric guitar duo ii-v-i modulate between three different natural harmonic series, providing intriguing musical outings that are somewhat adrift from the tempered tunings that most of us are accustomed to. The short third track, minmaj, another duo for electric guitars, is Polansky’s unusual “translation” of Carl Ruggles’s 1921 brass piece Angels. The three works are performed by the composer in the company of a group of Bay Area composer-performers.

Polansky writes about this album:
“The form of both freeHorn and ii-v-i is a continuous modulation between three different harmonic series, though the two pieces work in very different ways (in freeHorn, the musicians interact with real-time computer software; in ii-v-i, the guitarists retune while playing). minmaj, an arrangement of Carl Ruggles’s Angels, is from my 3 Translations for Electric Guitar.”

“The Music of…Larry Polansky is a marvelous combination of the mathematical and the expressive. The blend is so seamless, in fact, that it serves to point out the absurdity of regarding those two strains as opposite or even especially different.” (Joshua Kosman, SFGate)

“Polansky has created a vast body of compositions that defy stylistic pigeonholing, from two-second canons to massive solo piano showcases as well as works for rock band, interactive computer environments, and solo piccolo in extended just intonation…. Every project he gets involved with ties to his social philosophy, as well. In everything he does, Polansky aims to create a model for a better world, a place where hierarchies cease to be oppressive and barriers are abolished.” (Frank J. Oteri, NewMusicBox)

REVIEWS:

“It should be apparent to anyone involved in writing about music that we have not developed a useful analytical vocabulary to reference when discussing the innovations of pieces written today.Speaking in those metaphors that lack concision and, consequently, the desired effect becomes an undesirable but essential avoidance mechanism, especially when the music screams simultaneous precision and freedom. This fairly brief but potent disc’s centerpiece is the epic freeHorn, lasting some twenty minutes. It’s difficult to imagine a Larry Polansky piece conjuring shades of late Romanticism, but a single tone, branching out into a triad, picking up brass, piano and strings along the way, accomplished it for this listener. It all even begins in the rumbling depths only an organ could muster in 1876. However, the Romantic allusions stop there, as timbre and orchestration involve a felicitous mixture of chamber ensemble and guitar, encompassing other sonorities that might be software-derived. Microtones gradually make themselves felt as much as heard, eventually enabling some of the most fascinating modulation I’ve ever had the good fortune to witness. Tonal centers are not specifically that; rather, each fundamental tone is demonstrated to be the cosmos it is, satellite tones in all registers shimmering in and out of a timbrally unified focus, until the piece ends where it began.

“The other two pieces are for guitar duo, employing a similar complex microtonal language. It is as if “freeHorn”’s monolithically drony syntax has fragmented, a boon to what Anthony Braxton calls “the friendly experiencer” for whom microtones are not necessarily an acknowledged mode of listening. If ii-v-i is indeed the archetypal jazz progression—and given Polansky’s interest in jazz, it’s possible—it’s difficult to say for sure. Both pieces do demonstrate a Derek Bailey influence as clean, clear tone jousts with harmonics. While Carl Ruggles’ original brass writing in Angels certainly informs the chorale-like minmaj, Polansky’s homage is more redolent of the remix than of straight transcription.

“There is a sense in which each tone, over and micro, is in its proper place, like every blade of grass on the White House lawn. That said, there is also something poetic, even rhapsodic, in each gesture. Method neither enslaves nor is enslaved by fancy, which keeps interest high throughout. It helps that the ensemble performing the titular piece comprises performers and composers, among them Amy Beale and David Dunn, all sympathetic interpreters. The recording could not be better, and repeated listening reveals layers of nuance in these richly vigorous but transparently textured works.” —Marc Medwin, Fanfare magazine

“Written commentaries that Larry Polansky has in the past provided for his work offer clear testimony to his musical sophistication and technical expertise. He is after all an advanced theorist, teacher, programmer, editor and publisher as well a composer and performer. But his abstract expositions, although generally illuminating, can appear rather dry, like recipes that describe a cooking process with accuracy yet fail to excite the appetite. His notes accompanying this release are minimal: the pieces freeHorn and ii-v-i both involve ‘continuous modulation between three different harmonic series’ while minmaj is revealed to be Polansky’s arrangement for electric guitar of Angels, an early 1920s composition by Carl Ruggles, originally scored for muted brass.

“Get to the music itself and you’ll find that it’s not only subtle but also seductive, richly flavorsome as well as conceptually refined. freeHorn shares its name with computer software of Polansky’s own design, conceived to open up in live performance complex and unfamiliar harmonic spaces for instrumentalists to explore. On this occasion a finely poised septet that features piano, cello and wind players along with Polansky and Giacomo Fiore on guitars and David Dunn bowing electric violin respond to the fluctuations of this program’s variable trajectory. It’s a music of translucent texture and glistening detail undulating gently around a tambura-like electronic purr, diaphanous fabric responding to the shifting currents of a passing breeze.

“The electric guitar duet ii-v-i provides further illustration of Polansky ‘s serious engagement with intonation theory. It’s also an attractive, buoyant and rhythmically lively piece of music that involves Polansky and Fiore retuning their instruments with implausible deftness and precision as they criss-cross, make contact and reconfigure like dancers performing intricate movements on an icy surface. Then, on minmaj, the same duo translate a rogue modernist’s language of dissonant polyphony into an idiom that might appeal directly to fans of the great jazz guitarist Jim Hall. What seemed visionary in Ruggles appears here as a reflective dialogue, still harmonically adventurous yet intimate and warm.

“Polansky’s prose maps the circuitry; his music supplies the full sensory experience and deeper pleasure.” —Julian Cowley, The Wire

“Where ‘new music’ is concerned, it is rarely (if ever) the case that I encounter a new recording all of whose selections I have previously experienced, either in concert or on another recording. These are always pleasurable occasions, because they almost always reaffirm my conviction that there is more than one way to approach any composition worthy of listening at all; and, while I often feel that the number of recordings of Beethoven is ℵ0 (infinite but countable), encountering more than one recording of anything composed in this century tends to be quite a find.

“Bearing that in mind, I would like to enumerate the selections on this new recording in the order in which I first listened them. The earliest of these is minmaj (as in ‘minor’ and ‘major’). Polansky calls this a ‘translation,’ scored for two electric guitars, of Angels, a piece composed by Carl Ruggles for six muted trumpets. I heard this at a recital given by Giacomo Fiore in the Old First Concerts series in March of 2013. He played it with Polansky, along with another “translation,” this time of a hymn by William Billings. Both of these would subsequently show up in the publication of 3 Translations for Electric Guitar. On the freeHorn album, the guitarists are again Fiore and Polansky.

“About a year and a half later Fiore released his self-produced album iv: american electric guitars. This provided my “first contact” with freeHorn, the composition for which the new album is named. Polansky composed this piece in 2004 “for any instrument and electronics;” and Fiore played it as a solo. However, on the freeHorn album, Polansky presented this as an ensemble piece. Fiore again played electric guitar, Polansky played his fretless electric guitar, and they were joined by a diversity of other instruments performed by David Kant (tenor saxophone), Krystyna Bobrowski (horn), Tom Dambly (trumpet), Amy Beal (piano), David Dunn (electric violin), and Monica Scott (cello).

“Finally, in March of 2016, Polansky and Fiore performed in the second of the three concerts of that year’s Other Minds festival. That was my first encounter with ii-v-i, the remaining selection on the new album. This also saw Polansky playing his fretless electric guitar.

“Both freeHorn and ii-v-i involve Polansky working with natural harmonics, rather than scale systems. The title ii-v-i suggests a familiar chord progression; but in both of these pieces Polansky is interested in what he calls ‘continuous modulation.’ Since the frets on one of the two guitars involved in the performance are not designed to capture the pitches of the overtone series, the performers are required to retune their instruments as part of the performance itself. In freeHorn, on the other hand, the necessary overtones can be readily synthesized by the electronics; so Polansky’s approach to continuous modulation arises from the interplay of instrument sounds and synthesized tones.

“The title freeHorn also suggests a free-form approach to structuring that interplay. On Fiore’s recording the duration is about twelve minutes. On the new album, it is closer to twenty minutes. Presumably the additional time involves exploring how each of the contributing instruments engages with the synthesized natural harmonics in its own particular way. In other words, both performing and listening are matters of ongoing discovery; and, on the new album, there is definitely enough to discover in that twenty-minute track to warrant listening to it on several occasions over an extended period of time.

“minmaj, on the other hand, seems to take its point of departure by recognizing that Ruggles conceived it as a brief study in the ambiguity of dissonance. For Ruggles that meant deliberately avoiding establishing whether the prevailing mode was minor or major, which explains Polansky’s choice of title. However, what is interesting is that, by playing on a fretless instrument, Polansky could extend that capacity for ambiguity much further than Ruggles was able to express with six trumpeters who, by virtue of training and experience, were locked into the intonation of the equal-tempered chromatic scale. This would explain why Polansky called the piece a ‘translation,’ rather than a ‘transcription.’ I would be willing to guess that Polansky saw his ‘translation’ as a way in which to situate Angels in a ‘domain of intonation’ more conducive to what Ruggles may have actually had in mind.” —Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio

“The title piece spans two-thirds of the entire release and it’s for a small chamber orchestra…. [I]n an odd way I am reminded of the music of Architect’s Office, but then without voices and much better recorded; nevertheless, there was a similar moody atmosphere, an excellent slowness about this, which I enjoyed very much. Music for an endless slow, warm summer’s day. The other two pieces see Giacomo Fiore on guitar and Polansky on fretless electric guitar on one piece and electric guitar on the other. ii-v-i is a ‘continuous modulation between different harmonic series’ and is a more hectic piece, but both gentlemen keep things very civilized. minmaj is a very quiet piece that ends this release and passes without too much notice, which is a pity. With freeHorn being such a fine and long piece I am still quite pleased with this.” — Vital Weekly(Netherlands)

“The music on this CD emerges from a particularly rich synergy of scoring, tuning, programming, and polished performances…. freeHorn on track 1 features no fewer than eight musicians that include acoustic and electric instruments in addition to the computer electronics. freeHorn begins with a single, deep tone that is felt more than heard. What sounds like a trombone enters at a slightly higher pitch, then the guitar and keyboard. Horns join in along the harmonic series, and this produces a powerful feeling of awakening, especially when the french horn enters. The tones are elegantly long and smoothly flowing; the opening of Das Rhinegold comes briefly to mind. At about 3:00 some dissonance creeps into the brass, creating a feeling of uncertainty as the piece continues. The various parts no longer feel tightly connected and there is a greater sense of mystery and tension. Short riffs from the various acoustic instruments appear among the longer tones, disrupting the sleek texture.

“A low drone heard in the electronics along with various alien sounds soon dominates the texture, creating a sense of remoteness. The volume continues to build and billow while the horns and guitars dart in and out of the texture—the playing here is precise and well-balanced to the electronics. This ball of sound seemingly has movement, and yet is simultaneously static. By 17:30 the tempo begins to slow and there is a comforting return to the more conventional harmonic structure of the opening series. This warm and welcoming feel provides a nice sense of closure as the texture thins and the volume decreases—and a single low tone fades to a finish. freeHorn is an amazing excursion, starting from conventional harmonic comfort, extending all the way to a foreign remoteness, and then carrying the listener safely back again.

“ii-v-i follows on track 2 and begins very differently with deep bass tones and a moving guitar line above that immediately projects an air of mystery. More guitar lines join in at 1:40—a bit more sociable and less mystifying—with just the slightest flash of a Joni Mitchell sensibility. After slowing some at 4:00, the tempo moves resolutely ahead and there is an almost country-western feel that ultimately evolves into interleaving layers mixed with strong rhythmic stretches. The tuning seems to be changing even as the passages of the guitar melodies emerge and disappear, and just when you get comfortable, it morphs into something new. Finally, the last note rings out for several long seconds before disappearing into silence. ii-v-i unwinds in a swirl of different sounds and rhythms, the listener constantly and pleasantly recalibrating as the piece unfolds.

“The final track on this CD is minmaj, a short duo…. minmaj begins with a single questioning chord followed by more simple chords asking more questions. Although light and measured, there is a sense of moving forward and the accompaniment from the bass adds some depth to the texture. At 1:23 a more sinister sensation emerges followed by a quieter and more lonely stretch. The growing sense of the solitary isolation persists to the subdued ending. minmaj is a concise sketch of just that sort of enigmatic uncertainty that we all encounter at 3 AM.” —Paul Muller, Sequenza21

“The title piece here deals with ‘a continuous modulation between three different harmonic series. This means very little to me (as a non-musician or composer), although I found the music here no less fascinating. When I was listening to this CD in the store recently, a customer asked if it was some sort of religious music, like from a church service. Hmmmmm, I don’t think so. The title piece, freeHorn, has layers of reverberating drones, seesawing, breathing together slowly, calmly at first. As some of layers expand or drift, certain elements or instruments become somewhat disorienting. Each instrument seems to be vibrating in a slightly different way. Although there appears to be sense of calm at the center, this piece makes me feel uneasy, as something bad or dark is about to take place but nothing bad did happen. The last piece, minmmaj, is…for two electric guitars and sounds delicate yet somehow fractured, bent notes hanging in the air waiting for some resolution. At around 31 minutes in length, this is more like an EP yet feels just long enough to make fascinating and impressive nonetheless.” – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter

“Two distinct yet related sides of composer Larry Polansky are captured on this thirty-two-minute release. A classic polymath, he’s issued material on New World Records, Artifact, and Cold Blue, and as a performer premiered works by Christian Wolff, James Tenney, Lou Harrison, and others. Polansky’s also worked at the Mills Center for Contemporary Music, recently produced a festival of American Sign Language (ASL) poetry at UC Santa Cruz (where he teaches), and has published articles in a host of journals devoted to contemporary music practice.

“Two of the three settings are guitar pieces performed by Polansky and Giacomo Fiore, an Italian-born player whose PhD thesis explored the development of just-intonation guitars in 20th-century American music. The twenty-minute title piece, on the other hand, augments the guitarists with six other players, each participant a distinguished music scholar, performer, and composer in his/her own right. Pianist Amy Beal, for example, has published books about Carla Bley and Johanna Beyer, whereas Krystyna Bobrowski, credited with horn on the release, designs and builds her own instruments using natural materials (such as rocks, leaves, and seaweed) and everyday objects (rocking chairs, wine glasses, and motors). Fleshing out the ensemble are Tom Dambly (trumpet), David Dunn (electric violin), David Kant (tenor sax, computer), and Monica Scott (cello).

“On the release’s inner sleeve, Polansky describes freeHorn as consisting of ‘a continuous modulation between three different harmonic series’ during which the musicians interact in real time with computer software written by the composer and Phil Burke. Opening softly, freeHorn slowly blossoms as individual instrument sounds contribute to the gradually swelling whole. An initial single tone is joined by sustained brass, strings, guitar, and piano flourishes until the whole assumes the form of a shimmering, drifting mass of mutating timbres, pitches, and sonorities. A tamboura-like drone provides a ground to fluctuating microtonal shadings throughout this electroacoustic chamber work, whose slow-motion flurries prove transfixing, especially when the instruments’ unusual tonal contrasts and harmonic shifts are handled with such sensitivity by all involved.

“Though the other settings are scored for guitars only, they’re arresting in their own way. ii-v-i, we’re informed, limits itself to ‘open strings, 2nd, 3rd and 4th harmonics, and notes stopped at the 7th and 12th frets’ and involves the retuning of guitars from one part to another, but such details ultimately resonate less than how the piece simply sounds. Hearing Polansky (fretless electric) and Fiore (standard electric) interweave makes for a fascinating listening exercise. As their spidery tendrils criss-cross and occasionally unite, it’s hard not to think of Derek Bailey, though other moments suggest ties to country blues playing and one riff even vaguely echoes ‘Ramblin’ Man,’ of all things. Ending the release memorably is minmaj, a three-minute treatment of Carl Ruggles’ 1921 work Angels that’s rendered with exquisite care by the guitarists. Still, as compelling as the guitar settings are, it’s freeHorn that most powerfully argues on the recording’s behalf.” —Ron Schepper, Textura

“A few years ago (2010), listening to Michael Vick’s Vead FootHills Jam album, I picked up on his thoughts about composers’ lack of interest in fretless guitar…. But those days seem so far away. Today we can hear this great record freeHorn, which is not only mostly dedicated to guitar music, but also the fretless guitar.

“The CD is divided into three tracks: the first, freeHorn, performed by an ensemble of eight instruments, including two guitars…. It is a fairly well-nourished version, in contrast to a solo guitar version of the piece recorded by Giacomo Fiore for his 2014 LP IV: American Electric Guitars. freeHorn (2004), which was composed for any grouping of instruments and electronics, and the other two pieces that make up the CD, testify to one of the characteristics of Polansky’s music: his interest in the modulation of musical harmonic series. In freeHorn, the musicians play well-defined harmonic series and their interweaving of these creates complex music that’s dream-like…immersive.

“The other two tracks, ii-v-i and minmaj, are for guitar duo and feature Giacomo Fiore on the electric guitar and Polansky himself on fretless guitar. The first of these continues Polansky’s work with harmonic series, the second is, instead, a transcription for guitars of Angels, composed by Carl Ruggles in 1921….

“I think I have found in Polansky…a vision of music that is immersive and almost tactile. Polansky’s music also does not seem to emphasize that never-ending search for complexity or complication that often detracts from listening to the extreme types of avant-garde music. Polansky’s music is enjoyable, intense, and within reach of anyone who wants to listen to music that is something more than just a momentary distraction. Highly recommended for those who love playing the fretless guitar.” — Andrea Aguzzi, Neuguitars (Italy)

“The art of working with little (in terms of material and structure) to produce a lot (emotionally) is the basis of the compositions of the eclectic American composer Larry Polansky that are contained on this beautiful new Cold Blue release. This is demonstrated in the piece for two guitars playing continuous modulations between three different harmonic series. The effect is hypnotic and enveloping, with the electric guitars weaving a whispered dialogue that unfolds with apparent freedom, yet without ever deviating from a shared thematic core. An analogous composing principle is at the center of the 20-minute piece entitled freeHorn, which has a rich and unusual instrumentation—including sax, horn, trumpet, piano, electric guitar, and strings. Its slow flow of floating sounds, ethereal arpeggios, and melodic fragments, creates an emotional mood that swings between sweetness and anxiety. It has a sort of refined ‘dark ambience’ that is, from time to time, illuminated by shadows of bright beauty and, in its evocative atmosphere, not far from certain works by Ingram Marshall.” — Filippo Focosi, Kathodik (Italy)

“We encounter today radical tonality ambience and another worthwhile Cold Blue EP, this one by Larry Polansky. It is called freeHorn, after the 20-minute title work. There are three works in all. Common to the entire program is the electric guitar and fretless electric guitar of Larry Polansky and Giacomo Fiore.

“It is freeHorn that stands out as the most elaborate and satisfying of the three works. The two guitars meld with a chamber ensemble of computer audio, tenor sax, horn, trumpet, piano, electric violin and cello. It involves as the composer describes ‘a continuous modulation between three different harmonic series’ as set up and followed by the musicians via a computer audio roadmap. It sets up a drone and overtone backdrop that does suggest the natural sounding of the horn and its overtonal realization of the pitches it produces in a pre-tempered unforced sounding.
“From the ongoing hum of fundamental and overtonal constancy are the punctuations of the chamber instruments that reinforce now one, now another, now eventually virtually all possibilities of a harmonic series and in the process creates vivid sound color templates while moving from harmonic series to other harmonic series. It mesmerizes and then intrudes with details that then recede into the harmonic smear. Altogether the work makes present a thing of atomized beauty joined together by the adhesive of a gestalt totality, if you’ll pardon my verbose suggestion.

“ii-v-i works within a three-part modulation as did freeHorn, only it is the fretless and fretted guitar that work with soundings and broken arpeggiations while the modulations are made possible by retunings of the strings as the performance moves forward. It fascinates and gives us pronounced motion in the minimal chamber combination. minimaj concludes the program. It is Polansky’s recomposed/arranged version of Carl Ruggles’s Angels for guitar(s). There is pronounced contrapuntal-harmonic movement. It is a very lovely way to end the program. freeHorn is the main event yet the other two works reveal an equally sensuous immersion in sonic sunshine.

“I cannot and will not tell you what to buy, what to hear. I do suggest with a big smile that you allow this music to enter your life. It is not quite like other things being made today, and all the better for that. Another Cold Blue gem is this one.” —Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review