| Songs from the Hermetic Theatre | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | June 26, 2001 | |||
| Recorded | March 2001 | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde, contemporary classical music | |||
| Length | 51:21 | |||
| Label | Tzadik TZ 7066 | |||
| Producer | John Zorn | |||
| John Zorn chronology | ||||
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Songs from the Hermetic Theatre is an album of contemporary classical music by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [2] |
| Pitchfork Media |    [3] |
The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars stating "Songs From the Hermetic Theater may not be every Zorn fan's cup of gasoline, but almost none of his records are: he's written so much for so many different kinds of musical groupings it's difficult to have an affinity for them all -- but it is a thoroughly rewarding and enriching collection of new works. This set adds even more depth and dimension to an artist who has become unstoppable not only in his output, but in his vision for modern music". [2]
Writing for Pitchfork Media, Brent S. Sirota stated "Hermetic Theatre is the no-hassle, easy-to-follow, four-step program for achieving that tenuous, bi-polar, paranoid, quasi-hallucinatory handle on living... The antidote to dying miserably". [3]
All compositions by John Zorn
John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted "Though Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Naked City is an album by John Zorn, released on Elektra Nonesuch in February 1990. The band assembled by Zorn for the album would later be known as Naked City. The album is characterized by its covers of movie themes and its fusion of various musical genres.
IAO is an album by John Zorn released in 2002 on the Tzadik label. The album was inspired by Aleister Crowley and his follower, filmmaker Kenneth Anger and draws its title from the Kabbalistic identity of IAO, the initials of Isis, Apophis and Osiris, used as a magical formula in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and in Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass.
Filmworks IX: Trembling Before G-d is the ninth album of film scores by John Zorn. The album was released on Zorn's label, Tzadik Records, in 2000 and features the music that Zorn wrote and recorded for the documentary Trembling Before G-d which was directed by Sandi Simcha Dubowski. Five of the tracks are pieces from Zorn's Masada songbook.
Filmworks XIV: Hiding and Seeking features a score for film by John Zorn. The album was released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2003 and contains music that Zorn wrote and recorded for, Hiding and Seeking (2003), a documentary directed by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky.
Filmworks XV: Protocols of Zion features a score by John Zorn for a documentary film by Marc Levin. The album was released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2005 and contains music that Zorn wrote and recorded for, Protocols of Zion (2005), a documentary detailing the rise of anti-semitism following the September 11 attacks.
Filmworks XVII: Notes on Marie Menken/Ray Bandar: A Life with Skulls features scores by John Zorn for two documentary films. The album was released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2006 and contains music that Zorn wrote and recorded for, Notes on Marie Menken (2006), directed by Martina Kudláček and a percussion score for Ray Bandar: A Life with Skulls directed by Beth Cataldo.
Filmworks XVIII: The Treatment features a score for film by John Zorn. The album was released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2006 and contains music that Zorn wrote and recorded for the romantic comedy, The Treatment (2006), directed by Oren Rudavsky.
Cartoon/S&M is a double album of contemporary classical music by American composer John Zorn. The piece Kol Nidre which appears in two versions on this recording is a tune from Zorn's Masada songbook.
Madness, Love and Mysticism is an album of contemporary classical music by American composer John Zorn released in 2001 on the Tzadik label.
The Dreamers is an album by John Zorn released in 2008 featuring performances by a band which would later become known as The Dreamers. It is viewed as continuation of the Music Romance tradition expressed on his 2001 album The Gift.
Euclid's Nightmare is an album of improvised music by Bobby Previte and John Zorn. The album was released on the Depth of Field label in 1997. The album comprises 27 untitled tracks of which several are intentionally identical - tracks (7) and (18); tracks (3) and (20); and tracks (5), (14), and (27).
Filmworks XXI: Belle de Nature/Rijksmuseum features a score for film by John Zorn. The album was released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2008 and contains music that Zorn wrote and recorded for film director Maria Beatty's Belle de Nature (2008) and a documentary on the renovation of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.
O'o is an album by John Zorn released in 2009. It the second album by The Dreamers following their 2008 release The Dreamers. The title refers to the ʻōʻō of the Hawaiian Islands, the last living members of the now-extinct songbird family Mohoidae. The song titles likewise refer extinct or nearly-so birds, from the prehistoric Archaeopteryx lithographica to the Zapata rail of which a few hundred survive in Cuba.
The Goddess – Music for the Ancient of Days is an album composed by John Zorn and released on the Tzadik label. It is the third in a series of albums, the first two being Alhambra Love Songs and In Search of the Miraculous.
Filmworks XXIV: The Nobel Prizewinner is a soundtrack album by American composer John Zorn released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik, in 2010 featuring music written and recorded for Dutch film director Timo Veltkamp's's De Nobelprijswinnaar (2010).
At the Gates of Paradise is an album by John Zorn released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2011 and featuring music inspired by William Blake and the Gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi library.
Nosferatu is an album by John Zorn released on the Tzadik label in April 2012 on the 100th Anniversary of Bram Stoker's death. Zorn wrote the score as a commission for a Polish theatre group's adaption of Stoker's novel Dracula.
Tap: Book of Angels Volume 20 is an album by guitarist Pat Metheny performing compositions from John Zorn's Masada Book Two. The album was released simultaneously on Tzadik Records and Nonesuch Records. Though Zorn and Metheny are of similar age and both came to prominence in the late 1970s and have long admired each other's music, Tap is the first collaboration between the artists.
The Hermetic Organ Vol. 2 is an album by John Zorn, consisting of a live improvisation on the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ of St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University, which was recorded on September 23, 2013 and released on Tzadik Records in January 2014. The performance was part of the Miller Theatre's Zorn @ 60 series. It follows Zorn's first volume of organ improvisations, The Hermetic Organ (2012).