Whygold’s Weekend
… under this motto I present you my music tip for the weekend.
Maybe one or the other discovers something new.
Consciously listening to music is, in my opinion, as important as reading a good book.
Today: Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Tarkus
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nz8GMq9BnoVC_gVjmQ2aBa46UmMjmfsp4
Tarkus is the second studio album by British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It was released in 1971 and represented their final breakthrough into one of the most successful groups of the 1970s.[1][2] The title Tarkus, illustrated by the cover art, takes up the entire A-side. It is considered “one of the earliest and most influential rock suites“[3] and partially incorporates elements and influences of jazz as well as 20th century classical music. The B-side contains six shorter, stylistically rather inconsistent individual tracks.
According to Keith Emerson, the suite Tarkus was written in only six days. The twenty-minute piece is divided into seven parts that merge into one another without a break, but are clearly delineated as such musically and on the cover. These are called Eruption, Stones of Years, Iconoclast, Mass, Manticore, Battlefield and Aquatarkus. Tarkus is one of progressive rock’s “earliest and most influential as well as musically radical rock suites.”[3] According to some rock critics, it “delivered on what Keith Emerson had promised Nice with The Five Bridges suite.”[7] It alternates purely instrumental sections (1,3,5,7) with sections that include vocals (2,4,6).[8]
The piece can also be interpreted as “three individual titles with a prelude and an attached postlude”[9]. The instrumental parts (1, 3 and 5) are characterized by hectic ostinati[10]The music is characterized by a strong, aggressive and frequent change of time signature, with a preference for odd time signatures. Thus, the subtitle Eruption changes from 10/8 to3/4, back to 10/8 and finally to 4/4 within only 20 measures. The vocal parts (2, 4 and 6), on the other hand, are more conventional in a rock context. They are all in the “usual” 4/4 time, are kept in slower tempos and are rather chordal in character.
(Source: Wikipedia)
If you want to know even more about this record, I recommend the complete Wikipedia entry. There is much more music theory detail there.
Otherwise, this is a thoroughly interesting musical work that is worth listening to. The different musical parts, the time signature changes, the instrumentation …
Have fun listening to this album !
Your Chris Weigold
P.S.: Maybe you enjoy the listening pleasure together with a glass of wine from our “Orchester der Kulturen Edition”.