Daniel Schmidt
Today we’re listening to Daniel Schmidt, an American composer and gamelanist. Thanks to Sam Hockley-Smith for introducing us to his music in a recent post. Born in 1942, Schmidt grew up on the east coast and then moved to California for graduate studies in composition and Javanese music at Cal Arts.1 We owe the gamelan a lot; David Toop wrote, “The day when Claude Debussy heard Javanese music performed at the Paris Exposition of 1889 seems particularly symbolic. At that point – in my view the beginning of the musical twentieth century – accelerating communications and cultural confrontations became a focal point of musical expression.”2 Schmidt popularized the gamelan in the United States by concocting techniques to manufacture the instrument using aluminum and brass. We’re playing two collections of his minimalist recordings from the late ‘70s and ‘80s: In My Arms, Many Flowers and Abies Firma. Stranded Records described the music as “evocative of the San Francisco Bay Area’s endless tides of ocean and fog – patterns of ringing tones evolve and dissolve over shimmering sustained notes and droning strings, ever-so-subtly distorted.”
In My Arms, Many Flowers - Daniel Schmidt (44m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Abies Firma - Daniel Schmidt (62m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
We wish you a great start to your week.
