Song of the Day: Rhys Chatham – “A Crimson Grail: Part 1”

Few would dub Rhys Chatham a simplistic musician. A guitar player and composer, he began creating experimental pieces for large "guitar orchestras" in New York City in the late 1970's, working with fellow avant-garde guitarists like Sonic Youth godfather Glenn Branca.

In 2005, Chatham was commissioned by the city of Paris to create A Crimson Grail for the Nuit Blanche Festival, an annual all-night celebration of the arts. The performance, featuring some 400 guitars, took place in the cavernous Basilica of Sacré Coeur on October 1 of that year.

Said Chatham of the work: "Sacré Coeur is a massive space with a delay time for more than 10 seconds, so I had to write a composition specifically for it."

A Crimson Grail is broken into three pieces, each between 16 and 20 minutes long. Featured here, Part 1 is the least rhythmic and arguably the most melodic.

The natural acoustic qualities of the church, constructed to carry the sound of a single voice or instrument across its wide expanse, effect wonders on the chorus of guitars. Sounds split and shear off from one another, collapse and reform dynamically. The melodic whole is more than the sum of its parts, as the choir of guitars synthesize into ethereal timbres that could never be created from any one instrument.

Extremely Timely Update: If you're in or around NYC this Saturday evening (August 8), you may want to check out a 200-guitar performance of A Crimson Grail, conducted by Chatham himself at the Damrosch Park Bandshell and commissioned by the Lincoln Center.

More info here: http://new.lincolncenter.org/live/index.php/wordless-music.