I admit to having been super curious what you would make of it all, especially the Tull, music so many people either dislike or simply don't respond to but which has been for me a lifelong source of pleasure and illumination.
No, they're music I needed and didn't know it—I'm not quite sure how they were off my radar for so many years, given their intricate lyrics and their non-crystally approach to the folk tradition. (There's a whole spectrum of folk-influenced music that I have trouble listening to because it borders on—or outright falls over into—the twee. This is not the case with Jethro Tull and I was pleased to discover it, because titles like "Jack-in-the-Green," "Cup of Wonder," or "Dun Ringill" could go either way. As it is, the first of these is probably going to become a favorite song. I feel strongly about green-man imagery; this was my first published poem.) They're not quite the same flavor of weird as the Incredible String Band, but they sound like there are some common lines of descent. And all the songs you have given me are stories, which I also like. So, yeah. Success. I don't have the technical vocabulary to discuss Vagn Holmboe with the specificity he deserves, but he has an odd, recognizably classical, slightly allohistorical feel to his music, a half-step off from the structures or the dissonances the listener expects. There seems to be a strong folk component, but I'm not sure where it's from—Eastern Europe? No, wait, a bit of jazz just went past. Are klezmorim allowed a piano? Hey, the grotesque. And so on. I very much like the results, and I'm glad to have another twentieth-century composer to add to the mix. Thank you.
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No, they're music I needed and didn't know it—I'm not quite sure how they were off my radar for so many years, given their intricate lyrics and their non-crystally approach to the folk tradition. (There's a whole spectrum of folk-influenced music that I have trouble listening to because it borders on—or outright falls over into—the twee. This is not the case with Jethro Tull and I was pleased to discover it, because titles like "Jack-in-the-Green," "Cup of Wonder," or "Dun Ringill" could go either way. As it is, the first of these is probably going to become a favorite song. I feel strongly about green-man imagery; this was my first published poem.) They're not quite the same flavor of weird as the Incredible String Band, but they sound like there are some common lines of descent. And all the songs you have given me are stories, which I also like. So, yeah. Success. I don't have the technical vocabulary to discuss Vagn Holmboe with the specificity he deserves, but he has an odd, recognizably classical, slightly allohistorical feel to his music, a half-step off from the structures or the dissonances the listener expects. There seems to be a strong folk component, but I'm not sure where it's from—Eastern Europe? No, wait, a bit of jazz just went past. Are klezmorim allowed a piano? Hey, the grotesque. And so on. I very much like the results, and I'm glad to have another twentieth-century composer to add to the mix. Thank you.