Albums "Post-Symphonic Symphony No. 1 & Concerto No. 1"

The twin albums called "Post-Symphonic Symphony No. 1" and "Post-Symphonic Concerto No. 1" were released in January 2022 as The FURICO Music Team's (FMT) second albums (except for extended plays) so that it can be distributed via about 30 streaming services by being reposted by SoundCloud. There is no tangible package released. (For more details on FMT, please have a look at the "About FMT" page.)

"Post-Symphonic Concerto No. 1" contains our newly-released (post-)orchestral works called "Concerto No. 1, Op. 56", comprising three movements as follows:

Concerto No. 1, Op. 56  (Notes)

        1. First Movement: Watercourse

        2. Second Movement: Sweet Melancholia

        3. Third Movement: Artefact

        (For details on the alternative versions of "Third Movement: Artefact"
         called "Landfill" and "Landfill Changes", please refer to the separate notes.)

"Post-Symphonic Symphony No. 1" contains our newly-released (post-)orchestral works called "Symphony No. 1, Op. 55", comprising four movements as follows:

Symphony No. 1: "World War One", Op. 55 (Notes)

        1. First Movement: Naval Warfare

        2. Second Movement: Aerial Warfare

        3. Third Movement: Menuette For The Empire

        4. Fourth Movement: The Hundred Years

(A playlist "POST-SYMPHONIC Album" on YouTube is also to be made available.)

TM, the producer and one of two members of FMT, explains on the album:

Digital Orchestral Works but Something More 

Two of us, FMT, make music in genre-free styles. It is, thus, very natural to create (nearly) orchestral music as we both love the Western Classical and modern orchestral music and have some of them in our backgrounds. Such musicians as Pyotr Tchikovsky, Claude Debussy, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie and Ludwig van Beethoven greatly influenced me.

Nevertheless, the orchestra tends to be treated as the "orchestra", which only symbolises the tradition and has not seen much evolution. Although there are various alternative orchestras, I have not heard many attractive ones, quite unfortunately.

It is one of FMT's raisons d'être for us to create music that we want to listen to but that does not exist; that is the case for the orchestra as well. Our first orchestral pieces are "Hyper Chase For The Ruins" and "Cyber-Excavating The Ruins", included in the "Unphysical" album, whereas the next could be "Neither West, East, North, Nor South" to some extent. Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 1 follow them.

Like The Ruins Series, in the two works in this album, our aim is not just to simulate an orchestra (though we are doing so to a certain degree), but also to pursue the fun and uniqueness of a digitalised orchestra. It is so good to have such an orchestra without mistakes, pays, travelling expenses, studio rents, complication of members' relationships, and so on. Even if we accepted them because they were all the human nature and surrendered the deteriorated sound quality, the digital orchestra would be fun and unique enough for sure.

In addition, we use Joseph Mallord William Turner's "Mercury Sent to Admonish Aeneas" for the key visual of the albums, because I am a huge fan of his paintings and he painted many scenes of naval warfare (even though he died long before World War One).

How is Concerto No.1 Post-Symphonic?

Even though Concerto No. 1 might feel it's simply beautiful at the beginning (though we would be happy if so), it has the unique features of the digital orchestra. I would like to discuss just some of them here. (For more please see the Notes specifically on Concerto No. 1.)

We do not compose with any physical instrument and only with a blank notation score on the software MuseScore. I do not prefer what I call the spreading-butter-method, ie, making central phrases and accompaniment with a particular instrument and assigning them to various orchestral parts, but what I do for orchestral works is just directly writing the sheet. There must have been composers doing that in the undigitalised past, but it has been made obviously a lot easier now.

Also, the acoustics are greatly different and manageable. In Concerto No. 1, the more it goes, the more we added features unlike the orchestra acoustics. It's what TI splendidly built in it. Just try (again) the Third Movement.

I would pick up one more thing. A concerto in general consists of a solo part (on one particular instrument) and accompaniment, but there is almost no solo, but rather various instruments accompany like not only the yan-qing and lutes, but also the gate-reverbed drums and synth bass.

I know there are seemingly many endeavours for new concertos but unfortunately I have not heard ones new to me. 

For more details on Concerto No. 1, please refer to the Notes.

How is Symphony No.1 Post-Symphonic?

As I write more details in the Notes page, I am happy to release this a little after Remembrance Day / Armistice Day / Veterans Day or whatever you call 11 November in your country.

Symphony No. 1 has the features similar to those of Concerto No. 1 as I refer to above and they were strengthened possibly, which the old-record-like acoustics at the beginning in the First Movement symbolises well.

In addition to those, I believe it's post-symphonic that this Symphony was made for a fictional musical in 100 years ago played by a fictional orchestra. The play is held in the 1920s at a newly opened theatre in Broadway in New York, the United States, booming at the time. (We did not have plans to have vocals in it, though.) 

The story is about World War One, the first world-wide war that broke out more than 100 years ago (1914 - 18). I wonder why the early years of the 20th century attract me so much, including music around that time as well as the history of how the European empires ended up or collapsed, the rapid growth of Americas, especially the United States being super-powered, the rapid changes and sufferings in Asia, etc. 

For more details on Symphony No. 1, please refer to the Notes.

Thank you. We FMT hope you to enjoy it.

TM