Arts: Jonny Greenwood?s Orchestral Work Finally Gets the Release It Deserves

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Brow Beat Jonny Greenwood's Orchestral Work Finally Gets the Release It Deserves By Forrest Wickman Posted Monday, Mar 05, 2012, at 07:53 PM ET Back in November, Seth Colter Walls asked in Slate, "Why is no one talking about Jonny Greenwood's excellent new recording?" Jonny Greenwood is lead guitarist for the always obsessed-over Radiohead, but when his first large-scale orchestral piece "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" was given a quiet release on the small label Analekta, no one—even Radiohead's army of superfans—seemed to take notice. Nonesuch, the label that also put out Greenwood's chilling score for There Will Be Blood, was planning a release of its own, and Walls wondered whether Greenwood and his publicity team we're holding their fire until then. Walls seems to have been right: Today you can stream "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" from NPR, and the recording is attracting notice around the Web. The Nonesuch release, which pairs Greenwood with acclaimed Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, one of his idols, also features another new Greenwood work: "48 Responses to Polymorphia." Each work is set beside the Penderecki composition that inspired it, with "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" beside Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima," and "48 Responses to Polymorphia" beside Penderecki's "Polymorphia." (You might recognize each of the Penderecki pieces from the soundtrack for The Shining). The two composers described the relationship between their two compositions in a joint interview with The Guardian: Penderecki wired up psychiatric patients to encephalogram machines and played them an earlier piece of his, the "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima," and then translated the graphs of their brain-waves as they reacted ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Dear Prudence Grades Rush Limbaugh's Apology—and Suggests a Few Revisions When Did Douche Become an Insult? Advice on Hot Drinks From the Experts, Like Samuel Beckett and the NIH	Advertisement
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