When Indian spiritual music became popular in New York City in the mid-1960s, one of the youngest artists around was the least impressed. Unlike the others, Charlemagne Palestine had already experienced the power of musical traditions firsthand.
Growing up in one of Brooklyn’s Jewish neighborhoods, the strong cultural and spiritual environment of the Hasidic movement shaped Palestine’s early life, as he sang as a boy soprano in the synagogue choir.
As a teenager, Palestine became the carillonneur at St. Thomas Episcopal Church down the street from the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan in 1963. Before and after completing the short official programs, he spent hours experimenting with the tonal potential of the carillon and its bells.
And the scene listened. During the six years that Palestine played the carillon, artists such as minimalist composer Tony Conrad, street musician Moondog, or John Cage were regular visitors. They were obviously fascinated, but probably had no idea of the potential of the field research they were witnessing.
When Palestine turned to the piano around 1970, and after a brief period of studying electronic music with Morton Subotnick, he realised that rapid repetition of notes causes the strings to vibrate and produces overtones — most intensely on a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand Piano.
This discovery gave him the idea of composing long ritualistic pieces that had no religious reference and challenged Western audiences’ notions of beauty and meaning in music. Palestine thus became a sound shaman who created ultra special and unique sonic environments, such as with the piece Strumming Music in 1974, which went far beyond what one could imagine coming from a piano.
Strumming Music by Charlemagne Palestine appears in Wild Thyme Music (4): A Sonic Universe. Read about the other artists featured in this episode here: Italian Dhrupad singer Amelia Cuni, who has dedicated her life to the oldest known style of classical Hindustani music, and synthesist Eleh, whose minimalist works seem to have their roots in the cosmos itself.
Say Something