Uploaded August 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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Across two concerts at hcmf// 2019 Wet Ink Ensemble performed a range of new works from Charmaine Lee, Bryn Harrison, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Sam Pluta, Eric Wubbels, and Kristina Wolfe. Studio recording available via Huddersfield Contemporary Records – Wet Ink Ensemble, ’Smoke, Airs’ – nmcrec.co.uk/huddersfield-contemporary-records/smoke-airs

wetink.org
cerenem.org
kristinawolfemusic.wordpress.com

Kristina Wolfe: A Mere Echo of Aristoxenus (2019)

i. Ghost Aulos for Vitruvius
ii. Heptaechon

A Mere Echo of Aristoxenus is a set of two pieces based on the ancient accounts of aural architecture and the acoustic reconstructions of two lost sites. This is part of my ongoing research in sound and music archaeology that includes 1. the measurement and acoustic reconstructions of ancient sites and instruments, 2. textual descriptions of past listening experiences, 3. performing field work and measurements on intact acoustic sites, and 4. researching methods of presenting and exhibiting past acoustics. This work explores the acoustic sense of a large Greco-Roman amphitheatre with ‘sounding vessels’, as described by Vitruvius, and the Echo Stoa in the Olympic Sanctuary in Marathon, Greece.

Ghost Aulos for Vitruvius is based on ‘sounding vessels’ and a timbral analysis of a reconstructed Aulos (an ancient Greek reed instrument). Sounding vessels were bronze resonators used by the ancient Greeks to enhance the sonic experience of an amphitheatre. I built 3D virtual models of these vessels and placed them in a virtual convolution-reverb spatial representation of a large amphitheater. Much of Ghost Aulos for Vitruvius was created by orchestrating the sounds of these virtually reconstructed sounding vessels in the 3D model of the amphitheater.

Heptaechon was composed based on the acoustics of the Echo Stoa, a large colonnade described by Pausanias in the 2nd c. CE in his Description of Greece. He said that a word spoken there would echo seven times or more. I built a 3D model of the Echo Stoa structure based on the text and archaeological site plans and rendered an auralisation of the acoustics at various locations. My intent in this piece was to examine this site’s peculiar echoing behaviour and to compare an ancient account of sound with modern notions of echo.

Both works are interesting case studies for a number of reasons. In the case of the sounding vessels, some acoustic experts do not believe Vitruvius’ account and claim that the vessels would have been physically impossible. I do not make a claim about the physical possibility of such a site, but I was curious to hear how the vessels were imagined to function by Vitruvius and his contemporaries. I created the timbre of a ‘ghost aulos’ from the violin, saxophone, and flute. The intonation is derived from a reconstructed ‘Louvre aulos’.

In the Echo Stoa, my reconstruction seemed to confirm the claim of “seven or more” echoes from almost every perspective. I composed the material in the Echo Stoa to bring out the echoes of the space using the timbre of contemporary sounds (a Roman gong and chime). I also used the sounding vessels in this movement. In this instance, the vessels linger far above the Echo Stoa and ring like the ‘music of the spheres’.


///Credits

Wet Ink Ensemble
Alice Teyssier, flutes/voice
Alex Mincek, saxophone
Ian Antonio, percussion
Eric Wubbels, piano
Josh Modney, violin
Sam Pluta, electronics

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
19-20 November 2019

A project presented in partnership between CeReNeM, hcmf//, and Wet Ink

This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of the University of Huddersfield’s University Research Fund (URF), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (#750618 & #725899) and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Video by Angela Guyton