Henry Brant Collection Vol. 3

Not just your everyday extraplanetary environmental oratorio.

When I am 90 I hope to write an “extraplanetary environmental oratorio” like “Wind, Water, Clouds & Fire” for Present Music. But I wouldn’t be the first to do so. Henry Brant of Santa Barbara got there first, setting pearls of wisdom from Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks to music for no less than four choirs and twenty-five instruments all spread around a cathedral in Milwaukee. Recording such an ineffable musical experience, like the other 100 of his spatial works, gives a tantalizing 2D glimpse into this other dimension, like a Viewmaster for the ears. 

This third installment of the Henry Brant Collection moves Brant’s name even higher up the list in the pantheon of American Experimentalists as Partch, Cage, Cowell, Ruggles or Harrison. 

Other gargantuan creations inhabit this world: works written for the San Jose and Denver symphonies with the agile Daniel Kobialka’s violin acrobatics, and sonorities as cool as their titles: “Litany of Tides,” and “Trinity of Spheres.” 

If Leonardo were around he would surely approve. Brant may not have invented the helicopter or painted any chapel ceilings but he has made equivalent musical leaps. One day the world will discover this. Stay tuned.