The Land of Sand and Birds
subtitled uhhhhh (nervous laughter)
a radio show mostly on 20th century classical music

From the basement of the Walker Memorial Building at MIT, we broadcast Friday mornings from 6 to 8 on WMBR in Cambridge, 88.1 FM.
Archives of shows from the last two weeks are available here; scroll down halfway for The_Land_of_Sand etc., or scroll to wherever and listen to another WMBR show.

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January 18, 2008

Jean Sibelius - 5th Symphony (1915)
Windy and Carl - Set Adrift (1998)
Hans Werner Henze - 2nd Piano Concerto (1967)
The League of Automatic Music Composers (John Bischoff, Jim Horton, and Tim Perkis) - Martian Folk Music (1980)
Kevin Drumm - Totemic Saturation (2005)


January 25, 2008

Benjamin Britten - 3rd String Quartet (1975)
Iannis Xenakis - Polytope de Cluny (1972)
Mario Davidovsky - Electronic Study 1 (1961)
Carl Ruggles - Men and Mountains (1935)
Arthur Russell - Sketch for the Face of Helen (1981)
William Grant Still - Afro-American Symphony (1930)


February 1, 2008

Luigi Nono - Polifonica-Monodia-Ritmica (1951)
Igor Stravinsky - Les Noces (1923)
Alice Coltrane - excerpts from The Firebird (Stravinsky) (1910/1973)
Alice Coltrane - Andromeda's Suffering (1973)
Henry Cowell - Ostinato Pianissimo (1934)
Aaron Copland - Statements for Orchestra (1935)
Jacob Druckman - Animus III (<1971)
Barry Vercoe - Synthesism (1970)
Witold Lutosławski - 2nd Symphony (1967)


February 8, 2008

Toshiro Mayuzumi - Nirvana Symphonie (1958)
Francis Poulenc - 4 Laudes de Saint-Antoine de Padoue ("4 Laudes for St. Anthony of Padua") (1959)
Vibracathedral Orchestra - Ramshackle Sunrise (2003)
George Lewis - Triple Slow Mix (1978)
Nikolai Myaskovsky - Cello Concerto, op. 66 (1945)
Halim el-Dabh - Wire Recorder Piece (1944)
Leoš Janáček - The Ballad of Blaník Hill (1920)


February 15, 2008

Richard Strauss - Salome (1905)
Charles Ives - The Celestial Railroad (1925)


February 22, 2008 (lockout, short show)

John Cage - Six Melodies for violin and keyboard (1950); Michelle Makarski, violin
Karol Szymanowski - La berceuse d'Aïtacho Enia ("Lullaby for Aïtacho Enia") (1925)
Mouthus - Armies Between (2007)


February 29, 2008

Glenn Branca - 5th Symphony (1983)
David Behrman - Runthrough (1967)
Carl Nielsen - 2nd Violin Sonata (1912)
Bruno Maderna - Honeyreves (1962)
Morton Feldman - Structures for string quartet (1951)
Ryoji Ikeda - op. 1 for 9 strings (2001)


March 7, 2008

Alban Berg - Symphonic Suite from Lulu (1929-1935)
Wendy Carlos - Orchestra with Synthesizer, Digital Synthesis, and Digital vs. Analog, from Secrets of Synthesis (1987)
Wendy Carlos - Timesteps (1972)
Sofia Gubaidulina - 4th String Quartet (1993)
Alfred Schnittke - Monologue (1989)
Art Bears - Rats and Monkeys (1979)
Ekkehard Ehlers - Plays Albert Ayler A (2001)


March 14, 2008

William Schuman - Symphony no. 6 (1948)
Stefan Wolpe - Quartet (1950)
Don Voegeli - Sound Patterns with Logo (4) (1974)
Rob Grainier with Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, and Paddy Kingsland - Doctor Who (stereo version) (1972)
Claude Debussy - La Mer ("The Sea") (1905)
Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza - Untitled (~1968)
Henry Flynt - Raga Electric (1966)
Henry Flynt - Leather High in E (1978)


March 21, 2008

Fred Frith - No Birds (1974)
Earle Brown - December 1952 (1952) x 2: Michael Daugherty (1974), David Tudor (c. 1952)
Lukas Foss - Time Cycle (1960)
Janet Cardiff - The Missing Voice (1999) (excerpt)
György Ligeti - Requiem (1965)
Johann Strauss - The Blue Danube Waltz (1867), played by the Portsmouth Sinfonia (1974)
Oval - track 7 from Ovalprocess (2000)
DNA - Newest Fastest (1980)
Nathan Michel - The Beast (2005)
Tristan Murail - Gondwana (1980) (sorry about the dropped channel)


March 28, 2008

Manuel de Falla - Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1915)
Olivier Messiaen - Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum ("And I Await the Resurrection of the Dead") (1964)
Ernest Bloch - Sinfonia Breve (1952)
Istvan Marta, from Mrs. Pieter Benedek and Mrs. Gergel Imre - Doom. A Sigh (1989)
Conlon Nancarrow, arr. Yvar Mikhashoff - Study no. 7 (b/w 1948 and 1960)
Zeena Parkins - Persuasion (2004-2005)


April 4, 2008

Béla Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936)
Dmitri Shostakovich - 14th Symphony (1969)
Tony Conrad with Faust - From the Side of the Machine (1972)


April 11, 2008

Alexander Glazunov - The Seasons (1899)
Lars Graugaard - Incrustations (1994)
Alvin Lucier - Crossings (1982)
Quincy Porter - Piano Sonata (1930)
Otomo Yoshihide - Teinen Pushinanga (2002)
Pierre Schaeffer - Etude aux Tourniquets ("Study of Spinning Things" or something along those lines) (1948)
Anton Webern - String Quartet, op. 28 (1938)
Luc Ferrari - Strathoven (1985)
Charles Tomlinson Griffes - The Lake at Evening (1910)
Ernst Toch - Cavalcade (1959)


April 18, 2008

Pierre Boulez - Le Marteau sans Maître ("The Hammer without a Master") (1954)
Edgardo Canton - Rengaine à Pleurer ("Old Chestnut to Cry To" or something like that) (1967)
Bernard Parmegiani - La Roue Ferris ("The Ferris Wheel") (1971)
Harry Partch - Barstow: Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California (from The Wayward) (1941, rev. 1968)
Anthony Braxton - 8 KN - (B-12)-R^10, op. 17 (1971)
John Harbison - The Flower-Fed Buffaloes (1976)
Nancy van de Vate - Chernobyl (1987)


April 25, 2008

Roger Sessions - 3rd Symphony (1957)
Edgard Varèse - Deserts (1954)
James Tenney - Dialogue (1963)
James Tenney / Sonic Youth - Having Never Written a Note for Percussion (1971/1999)
Erik Satie - Messe des Pauvres ("Mass for the Poor") (1895)
Yoko Ono - Winter Song (1973)
Lou Harrison - Here Is Nourishment (1955)


May 2, 2008

Arthur Honegger - 3rd Symphony (Symphonie Liturgique) ("Liturgical Symphony") (1946)
Max Reger - Dankpsalm ("Psalm of Thanksgiving") (1916)
Franz Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody no. 17 in D minor (1882)
Ernest Schelling - Improvisation (1939)
Jandek - The Beginning (1999)
Lubomyr Melnyk - excerpt from KMH (1978)
Buhoslav Martinů - Concerto Grosso, for chamber orchestra (1937)
Terry Riley - Dorian Reeds (1966)


May 9, 2008

Brian Ferneyhough - Carceri D'Invenzione ("Imaginary Prisons") (1986)
Darius Milhaud - Suite for harmonica and orchestra (1943)
Luciano Berio - Chamber Music (1953)
Arnold Schoenberg - A Survivor from Warsaw (1947)
Bülent Alent - Stereo Electronic Music 1 (~1964)
Ben Johnston - Amazing Grace (1973)
Philip Jeck - Fanfares Forward (2008)
John Oswald - Lune (1995)
Toru Takemitsu - Toward the Sea II (1981)


May 16, 2008

Aram Khachaturian - Violin Concerto (1940)
Andrew Rudin - Peitho from Tragoedia (1968)
Cecil Taylor - track 7 from The Owner of the River Bank (2000)
Gustav Mahler - Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children") (1904)
Albert Roussel - 2nd suite from Bacchus and Ariane (1931)
Mount Eerie - Mount Eerie pt. 6 (2007)

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Would you like to know the frequency with which music from particular decades gets played on the show? A graph is available here. (Data analysis was last performed April 11.)

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Listening to the radio is a worthwhile hobby born in the early 20th century. The power to control our own isolated musical microclimates has grown since the invention of portable music players and the mp3, and that control is both good and bad - bad because, broadly, it reduces the diversity of sounds we hear, both musical and nonmusical, and bad also because it threatens radio listening. The danger to radio is an element of the bigger problem.
Worrying about music and assuming the burden of editorial control 24 hours a day gets more tiring and less dignified as you get older. If you're old but you still like listening to music during the day, turn on your radio, and you'll feel less self-obsessed and generally better. You can read a book or donate to charity or whatever while you listen. The worst part of doing my radio show is that I can't listen to the radio while I'm doing it.
Long-form music (which includes most classical music) can encourage you to take the long view of things and help you become more deliberative.
HTML, like the radio, is a once and future king of media. The future of communication is one-way. Static, uninteractable-with HTML web pages on the internet open a world of potential public humiliation to their creators, just like being on the radio.

Please email cmorten at mit period edu or call 617 253 8810 (at the station).