Name: Francis Poulenc - Sonata for Cello & Piano, I-II @pelodelperro
Uploaded: 2026-09-25T08:17:00-05:00
Duration: 8 min 17 s
Description: Francis Poulenc - Sonata for Cello & Piano, I-II

Francis Poulenc - Sonata for Cello & Piano, I-II

pelodelperro 2026-09-25 | Francis Poulenc - Sonata for Cello & Piano, I-II

Robin Minard - “qu’il m’en souvienne…”

pelodelperro 2023-09-01 | “qu’il m’en souvienne…”, acousmatic composition for 4-channel audio or stereo version (1987)

Oeuvre entièrement synthétique, qu’il m’en souvienne… a été composée sur l’ordinateur central VAX 11/780 dont était équipé le studio électronique de l’Université technique de Berlin, dans les années 80. C’est donc une œuvre historique, en quelque sorte. Elle est programmée en langage Cmusic-V, l’ancêtre de l’environnement Csound bien connu aujourd’hui. Cette composition met à profit deux des principales possibilités qu’offre le langage Cmusic, soit la synthèse sonore et la spatialisation. Ici, la synthèse sonore se fonde sur l’algorithme de corde pincée «Karplus-Strong»; pour les positions et trajectoires sonores, j’ai utilisé le module «soundpath» de Cmusic. La délicate courbe de tension de la musique et les deux points culminants de l’œuvre sont fortement soulignés par la vaste gamme dynamique qui prévaut à travers la composition.

Le titre provient du poème Le Pont de Mirabeau de Guillaume Apollinaire.

qu’il m’en souvienne… est une commande du Festival automnal de Varsovie (Warszawska Jesień) de 1987. Elle a été réalisée au studio d’électronique de l’Université technique de Berlin.

Art by Elizabeth Peyton

José Vicente Asuar - La noche II

pelodelperro 2023-08-28 | La noche II, for tape (1967)

A harmonic mixture of composer and engineer, José Vicente Asuar researched and generated electronic sound technologies, creating with them a deeply expressive and personal music: maybe the first devices created and modified in Chile in the late 50’s; the first fully synthesized work composed in our country and/or Latin America, in 1959; the implementation of Sound Technology career at Universidad de Chile, in 1969; setting up electroacoustic music studios in Germany (1960) and Venezuela (1966), are all consequences of his pursuit, as well as the composition of works that explored sound/ music continuities and discontinuities, ranging from natural to human to synthetic materials; designing a music-making-oriented computer of his own, unique in the world at that time (1978), all landmarks of a paradigmatic local pioneer. His work presents the convergence of certain aspects of musique concrète, linked to an Art Music context, where serialism techniques, computer-assisted composition via heuristic processes, and an exquisite flair for sound synthesis, flow in a particularly free and personal way. --Alejandro Albornoz

Art by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

José Miguel Candela - Ciclo «Alrededor de Chiron»

pelodelperro 2023-08-24 | Ciclo «Alrededor de Chiron», for electronics (2005)

1. choque Violento hacia el futuro
2. luna dE la luna chiron de chiron (1:00)
3. un mundo que vive más Rápidamente (2:00)
4. soN ‘ellos’ que (siempre) regresan (3:00)
5. apolovErne cxi (mito) (4:00)

«Alrededor de Chiron» (Around Chiron) Cycle is a group of 5 micropieces of 1.00 min. each, for continuous listening, without silences between them. It represents one way of thinking on the problem of form in electroacoustic music, and at the same time, a free re-creation of different episodes from Verne’s book «Around the Moon», to whom the piece is dedicated. «Around Chiron» Cycle was finished in 2005 for the «Projet d’oeuvre ouverte», 35e Festival Synthese (Bourges). --José Miguel Candela

Art by Émile-Antoine Bayard

Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt - String Quartet No. 4

pelodelperro 2023-08-22 | String Quartet Number 4 (1958)

I. Allegro
II. Andante (4:54)
III. Allegro (9:26)
IV. Allegro (10:37)

The Philadelphia String Quartet

Chilean composer Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt (1925-2010) began his musical studies at the age of seven at his local conservatory. He later earned his degree in Composition and Musicology at the University of Chile.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Becerra-Schmidt worked as a visiting professor at major European conservatories, including Italy, Austria, Germany, France and Spain. Between 1968 and 1970 he was Secretary of the Faculty of Sciences and Musical and Performing Arts of the University of Chile. He left the post of Secretary of the Faculty when appointed by the Government of Chile as Cultural Attache of the Embassy of Chile in Bonn, Germany.

Between 1956 and 1973 the catalog of the composer grew significantly. Among the nearly hundred works he wrote in that period was this piece, his String Quartet Number 4.

After the 1973 military coup overthrew the constitutional government of Chile, Becerra was removed from his diplomatic post and sought political asylum in the Federal Republic of Germany.

In the following years, Becerra-Schmidt continued his academic work at the University of Oldenburg, writing, and composing. He spent the remainder of his life there and died in 2010. The compositions of Becerra-Schmidt are known throughout the world, and he can be considered among the most important Chilean composers.

The recording is taken from an LP [Oly102, sold to Pandora by the University of Washington Press]. The engineer was Glenn White.

It was played by the Philadelphia String Quartet, which at the time of the recording comprised Veda Reynolds and Irwin Eisenberg, violins; Alan Iglitzin, cello; and Charles Brennand, cello.

Art by Brett Amory

Alejandro Albornoz - Noche de metales

pelodelperro 2023-08-21 | Noche de metales (2004-2005)

Primera Parte
Segunda Parte (09:36)
Tercera Parte (16:56)

Night of Metals is a trilogy inspired by the poetry of the Chilean writer Gabriela Mistral.

Referential sounds of metals were processed to obtain a rich sound palette that structures sections, moments and contrasts, all aiming to work with the connotative ideas of metallic textures and the telluric power of the earth. The gift of nature to the people of Chile, the mineral wealth of the Atacama Desert, parallels the danger and misfortune caused by earthquakes, which are the other force that is always present as a constant threat of disaster. With sounds in "delta" form, impulses, extended layers of atmospheric elements, the piece delivers moments of high activity and others of calm. The text that inspired the work is part of the original poem "Noche de Metales" from the book "Poema de Chile" by Mistral.

Art by Ian Francis

Federico Schumacher - Pl@y

pelodelperro 2023-08-21 | Pl@y (2008)

Original format: 6.0 channels

Liner notes:

Nos encanta jugar. En realidad somos niños grandes que no hemos logrado transformarnos en «verdaderos» adultos y continuamos jugando, ahora con cosas un poco más serias, como la música. Pero en este juego de la música, como en los juegos y como en la vida, sucede más a menudo de lo que quisiéramos el encontrarnos con situaciones imprevistas, diferentes a lo que esperábamos. A veces, nos toca perder.

Esta música está dedicada con mucha amistad, a Anette Vande Gorne.

---------------------------------------------------------

We love to play. In fact, we are big kids who have failed to become «actual» adults and keep playing, this time with things a bit more serious, like music. But in this game of music, as in any game and life, it happens more often than we’d like that we come across unforeseen situations, different from what we expected. Sometimes we lose.

This music is dedicated with great friendship to Anette Vande Gorne.

Art by Charles Mayton

José Gallardo - Melancolía

pelodelperro 2023-08-18 | Album: Humores (2018)

Humores makes reference to the moods or temperaments according to the classification of Hippocrates, considered the father of medicine. It is, thus, a kind of suite that is composed of emotional representations instead of dances.

The humoral theory, in force from Greek Antiquity until after the Renaissance, comprised four temperaments: Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholic and Sanguine. Each one of them was associated with an organ and with a secretion of the body (yellow bile, phlegm, black bile, and blood, respectively) and health would depend on the balance between these elements. The word ‘humor’ comes from the Latin ‘humore’ which means liquid or fluid.

Predominant in this album are rough textures, carefully agitated sounds obtained by microsampling – often treated in a granular way, and cacophonous conglomerations, almost always in counterpoint with their opposites, as in the game of resonances and punctual sounds of ‘Melancolía’ (Melancholy). --Bryan Holmes

Art by Edvard Munch

Manuella Blackburn - Causal Impacts

pelodelperro 2023-08-17 | Album: Pueblo Nuevo Primer Aniversario – Lado E: Electroacústica (2006)

Manuella Blackburn is an electroacoustic music composer who specializes in acousmatic music creation. However, she also has composed for instruments and electronics, laptop ensemble improvisations, and music for dance.

Manuella Blackburn has received a number of international awards and prizes for her acousmatic music including: Grand Prize in the Digital Art Awards (Fujisawa, Japan, 2007), First Prize in the 7th and 10th Concurso Internacional de Composição Electroacústica Música Viva (Lisbon, Portugal, 2006, ’09), First Prize in the Musica Nova International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic, 2014), International Computer Music Association European Regional Award (Australia, 2013), 3rd Prize in the Diffusion Competition (Ireland, 2008), Public Prize in the Concurso Internacional de Composição Eletroacústica (CEMJKO, Brazil, 2007) and Honorary Mentions in the Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS) competition (Morelia, Mexico, 2008) and in the Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo (CIMESP ’07, Brazil).

She is currently Senior Lecturer in Music at Liverpool Hope University (England, UK).

Art by Xiu Solar

Mauricio Kagel - Anagrama

pelodelperro 2018-03-19 | Anagrama, for four soloists, speaking chorus, and chamber ensemble (1957-58)

Kammersprechchor Zürich

Anagrama, written between February 1957 and November 1958, after preparatory work in Argentina, was given its first performance at the ICMS Festival in Cologne on June 1960. Nearly all the speech elements and sounds are derived from the palindrome on gnats and moths (wrongly attributed to Dante): In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (we circle in the night and are consumed by fire), whose completely symmetrical structure is the equivalent of Webern's late twelve-tone rows.

This is not a superficial comparison, for this piece, constructed in five sections and in three levels, represents no less than an attempt to match in vocal music the standard of synthetic sound differentiation based on Webern's work achieved in electronic music of that period. Of course, Anagrama at the same time also has its sources in completely different worlds, above all in Romanic- Manneristic Surrealism, but also in the Romantic-Universalistic spirit, which was obsessed with the idea that everything was connected with everything else. Kagel uses German, French, Italian, and Spanish; Latin is reserved for the palindrome, whose vocabulary of sounds (i, n, g, r, u, m, s, o, c, t, e) is extended by transposing the letters into acoustical terms; the c of consumimur, for example is mutated into a German k or a Spanish q (as in queso), the k in turn - together with s - provides the German x (as in Xylophon). It is not the meaning of the words, then, but their sound values which are the most essential part of all sound, word, and text composition here - most obviously so in what Kagel calls "acoustical translation". Pure sound imitation produces from the palindrome a sentence like: "In giro immoto notte e quieto ingu".

In line with Kagel's conception of lexica as the "summa summarum of all permuration systems", most of the new words are formed out of more or less regular rearrangements of the palindrome syllables. From "rum", for example, the words rumor (Sp.: rumour), rue (Fr.: street), Ruhe (G.: rest), Russe (G.: Russian), and rustre (Fr.: boorish) are derived, and there is an effortless development with about 30 intermediate steps from rime (Fr.: rhyme), ruinoso (Sp.: ruinous) or ripieno (It.: full) to Regung (G.: movement, emotion etc.), Regen (G.: rain) and requiem - partly via regular, partly via associative word production.

The sentences formed from the new words are superimposed, as in a palimpsest, to form absurd dialogues, as in, for example: "¿Quién teme?" (Sp.: who fears?) - "Tiens, mon Seigneur, ecoute un cri rôti" (Fr.: Well, sir, hear a roast cry) - "Je suis innocent" (Fr.: I am innocent). Or they are vaguely related: "Ein Ritter sitzt im Griinen" (G.: A knight sits in the open - "ieri ricino" (It.: castor-oil yesterday) - "er summt in seinem Eisen" (G.: He hums in his iron) - "oggi riposo" (It.: closed today). In general, a lack of syntactical connection between parts of sentences, dense polyphony, and an additional darkening of the sound (by use of vocal clusters, for example), combine to make such speech compositions almost totally incomprehensible. The phonetically written vocal sounds, the counterpart of the diversity of forms in the "Streichsextett", form a compendium of articulation methods, resembling electronic amplitude and frequency modulation. Pursing of the lips, breathy notes, nasalization, diverse vibrati, etc., create a rich spectrum of individual tone colours and transitions which before this composition had been restricted to electronic sound synthesis.

The instrumental articulation is also alienated. Their sound spectra and the connection of the palindrome letters with certain pitches aims at the acoustical integration of speech and music. That this does not lead to any kind of mechanical rigidity, but on the contrary, contributes towards a multifarious and large-scale structure is already made clear by the fact that identical connections only recur after 12 (pitches) times 11 (letters) =132 notes. In fact the form of the work is an implied criticism of the rigid formal structures of serial music; its ideal is constant transition even in the smallest elements - a concept derived partly from painting, in particular from Klee's "visual thought". Anagrama, then, is a passing tableau of colours and relationships which half conceals an anagrammatic form of semantics deriving from spontaneous and intentional associations and which occasionally descends from the heights of serial rationality - as in a passage of extreme density and intensity on which Kagel comments: "If these screams should awaken in the listener an impression that these are injured, suffering persons, then the chorus is to be heartily congratulated." --Werner Kluppelholz

Art by Nicholas Blowers

Morton Subotnick - Parallel Lines

pelodelperro 2018-02-03 | Parallel Lines, for solo piccolo with "ghost electronics" and nine players (1979)

Laurence Trott, piccolo

Members of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Buffalo Creative Associates
Michael Tilson Thomas

Parallel Lines is one of Subotnick's "ghost" pieces for live soloist and electronics. The ghost series is a unique method of blending electronics with live performances so that the effect of the electronics is not audible unless the performer is making a sound. The electronic ghost score is a digital control system which activates an amplifier, a frequency shifter, and a location device. These process the instrumental sound according to the plan of each composition. The ghost electronics were made possible by a Creative Arts grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, and were designed by Donald Buchla to the composer's specifications and constructed by John Payne at the California Institute of the Arts.

The composer writes: Parallel Lines was commissioned by Laurence Trott and the Piccolo Society. The title has to do with the way in which the ghost electronics interact with the piccolo. In previous ghost pieces the electronics were used to produce an acoustic environment within which the solo manifested itself, but in this case the ghost score is a parallel composition to the piccolo solo. The ghost score amplifies and shifts the frequency of the original non-amplified piccolo sound. The two (ghost and original piccolo sounds), like a pair of parallel lines, can never touch, no matter how quickly or intricately they move.

The work is divided into three large sections: (1) a perpetual-motion-like movement in which all parts play an equal role; (2) more visceral music, starting with the piccolo alone and leading to a pulsating 'crying out,' and (3) a return to the perpetual motion activity, but sweeter. [CRI SD 458]

Art by Grant Haffner

Lejaren Hiller - Sonata for Violin and Piano

pelodelperro 2018-01-12 | Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano (1971)

I. Furioso
II. Largo
III. Prestissimo

Mark Sokol, violin
Roger Shields, piano

I wrote this three-movement sonata during November and December, 1970 in Buffalo and added some final touches and alterations while vacationing on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands in early January, 1971. I find it rather odd to explain why I suddenly decided to write a piece of "straight" chamber music after not having done so for a considerable number of years. One compelling factor at least was the presence in Buffalo of Mark Sokol and Roger Shields for whom the piece was written. Their virtuosity was perhaps a challenge - so whatever else it is, the sonata is at least crushingly difficult to play.

It is in the three traditional movements: a sonata allegro, a slow movement and a rondo finale. Its mood is harsh and relentless. In this way, it is quite a contrast to its two predecessors. Sonata No. 1 (1949) is cheerful and cozy and Sonata No. 2 (1955) is rather full-blown and romantic by comparison.

There is really little that needs to be said regarding each of the movements save to note that there is a case to be made out for regarding this Sonata No. 3 to be in C. There is repeated emphasis in the first movement on this tone - and on middle C in particular. The middle movement by contrast centers around F sharp and the final movement emphasizes C again. Also, much of the writing for each of the two instruments derives from their inherent possibilities and limitations, for example, the kinds of multiple stoppings assigned to the violin. With regard to the piano, incidentally, only in the middle movement is the pianist asked to produce sounds directly inside the piano; otherwise he is strictly treated as a keyboard performer, although occasionally he is required to do some rather unusual things like play with his chin and his elbows. --Lejaren Hiller

Art by Barbara Hepworth

Bohdan Mazurek - Bozzetti

pelodelperro 2018-01-04 | Bozzetti (1967)

Realized in the Experimental Studio of the Polish Radio, Warsaw

Bozzetti is composed of four short parts, or musical sketches, which together form an integral entity. Each of the sketches has a different character from the point of view of both its sonorous and emotional climate. However, all the sketches are based on the same method of composing; the use of contrasts. The quiet musical narration developing in accordance with the linear principles, collides with very crude, and sometimes even brutal, sound material.

In the first part of the composition, the high-pitched, shrill sounds obtained from the transformed harp sounds, and the gradual crescendo of noise intrude upon the delicate sonorous texture composed of electronic sounds, and eventually makes the original sonorous material hardly audible. A similar procedure is apparent in other parts of the composition, too.

In the second sketch, strong and violent strokes of noise dominate over the original sound texture, while in the third part the calm and lyrical two-voiced canon is twice interfered with by long sequences of musical structures of percussion character.

The final sketch is the culminating point of expression. Though the method of approach to the sonorous material remains the same, the relations of sounds and dynamic proportions are changed. In order to achieve a specific dramatic expression in accordance with the leading idea of the whole work, the "interfering" sound layer-which in this part consists of a combination of viola sounds-dominates over the remaining sonorous material no more. On the contrary, it has to break through it and struggle against it. The composition ends with a separate, isolated viola chord.

While working on my composition I tried to avoid any aesthetic ornaments. Following the example of plastic artists, I attempted to outline my musical vision in form of a simple but expressive design. Hence, the title of the composition "Bozzetti" which means "Sketches". --Bohdan Mazurek

Art by Jeff Wall

Halim El-Dabh - Leiyla and the Poet

pelodelperro 2018-01-03 | Leiyla and the Poet (1959)

Halim El-Dabh produced eight electronic pieces in 1959 alone, including his multi-part electronic musical drama Leiyla and the Poet, which is considered a classic of the genre and was later released in 1964 on the LP record Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. His musical style was a contrast to the more mathematical compositions of Milton Babbitt and other serial composers working at the center, with El-Dabh's interest in ethnomusicology and the fusion of folk music with electronic sounds making his work stand out for its originality. According to El-Dabh: “The creative process comes from interacting with the material. When you are open to ideas and thoughts the music will come to you."

Leiyla and the Poet uses purely electronic sounds sparingly but obtains most of its effects by applying the tape manipulation technique of speed transposition, and electronic reverberation, to the instrumental and vocal materials prepared and recorded by the composer. The work is an incident from a work in progress, Electronic Drama, No. 1. Mr. El-Dabh's libretto, inspired by the ancient Arabic ode Majnum LeiyIa, is concerned with a madman and a poet who attempt to persuade Leiyla to follow different paths, either that of a free woman or that which would bind her to unbreakable ties. The chorus, when uttering words recognizable and unrecognizable, inflicts opposing ideas on the drama's three characters.

Art by Dia Azzawi

Otto Luening - Gargoyles

pelodelperro 2017-12-29 | Gargoyles, for violin and synthesized sound (1961)

Max Pollikoff, violin

Gargoyles is a composition for violin solo and synthesized sound. The synthesized sound material was produced on the Synthesizer, and later manipulated by tape techniques. The composition consists of a subject and series of short variations, each complete in itself. Some are synthetic and others are for the solo violin. Several variations combine solo and tape. The single tones of the subject introduce different shades of the same type of sound, and continue to accumulate until the end of the piece when the subject is transformed completely. The violin variations function as lyric contrasts to the synthetic ones, which are mostly dramatic and brilliant.

Art by Ynez Johnston

Costin Miereanu - Ombres Lumineuses

pelodelperro 2017-12-28 | Ombres Lumineuses, for clarinet, horn, percussion, 3 synthesizers, violin, cello (1985)

Ensemble Antidogma
Daniel Tosi

Sotto l'egida del Ministero del Turismo e Spettacolo, 1985 Anno Europeo della Musica

Art by Hung Keung

Maurice Wright - Electronic Composition

pelodelperro 2017-12-26 | Electronic Composition (1973)

The piece is centered on the pitch Middle C. The timbre space is created by assigning component musical lines to various synthetic "instruments" that are comprised of simple combinations of
oscillators and amplifiers and then recording these lines with careful control of reverberation and phase. Certain elements of the piece, namely the sounds that some listeners have compared to "a distant chorus," or "a mutant brass band," as well as the time-pointed clip-clop of electronically pitched horses' hooves in the brief Coda, are developed further in Cantata, a composition for tenor, percussion, and synthesized voices and instruments. --Maurice Wright

Art by Paul Chan

Jaan Patterson - Music for Shadows

pelodelperro 2017-12-13 | Music for Shadows (2015)

Welcome to the Gestalt and its relentless other - to pitch-black hybrids and binaries and their multiples of controled, deft musical noise and palimpsest speech, as each bubbles between the slats of playful overall collapse. Jaan Patterson offers the listener enough rope to gleen his narrative, via eleven neat numbered pieces, each dubbed '...from Shadows'. Some will dance, but only by the neck. Compulsive, structured and never less than going places. Recommended. --Anthony Donovan

Art by Dima Dmitriev

Günter Bialas - Introitus - Exodus

pelodelperro 2017-12-10 | Introitus - Exodus, for orchestra and organ (1976)

Edgar Krapp, organ

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Rafael Kubelik

When traditional labels for musical forms and genres are applied to 20th-century compositions they most often summon up a broad panoply of meanings. Much can be learned of the work in question by examining these meanings. Was the composer seeking reassurance from the past for his novel idioms? Did he feel compelled by his neo-classical leanings to take recourse in history? Or, as in the present work, did he wish to conjure up an aura of archaism and ritual? Bialas himself addressed this matter in a brief introduction: "First of all, 'Introitus' and 'Exodus' mean exactly what the words imply when translated iiterally: entrance and exit. We are familiar with the introit as the beginning of the mass. In Greek tragedy, exodus refers to the departure of the chorus. Both of these are rituals, and it is this idea of ritual which I wish to kindle in the listener".

The "entrance", a plastic sound introduced by an initial unison figure in the strings, brass and bassoons, is fully in keeping with Bialas's distinctive approach to music. It is no accident that this figure, an ascending whole-step with an upbeat flavour, is a prototypical incipit formula in liturgical psalmody. Hence it forms a clear link with plainsong (the "introit" as a genre never left the confines of Gregorian chant) and points to the semantic background of the work. In a sense, it announces the opening of a secular mass, a ritual pertaining to human life and death generally. However, as Bialas himself explains, the entrance is not without its difficulties: "Entrance means overcoming resistance: each advance provokes a reaction".

The "Interludium" is a rhapsody, its free form and improvisatory manner conforming to the traditional genre of this name. The composer has described its musical function as "to extend the development of the material, to prepare new material, to separate the movements, and to give the soloist an opportunity for self-expression". Unexpectedly, the primary turns into the intermediate: life is revealed as an "interlude" between birth and death.

The difficult entrance is followed by an implacable descend: "Even where the word 'Exodus' bears no relation to its familiar meaning in the like-named book or film (namelv explosion) every exit involves the application of force". This forced exit is immediately evident in the figures which open the third section. Now the progress of the piece is dominated by constantly descending figures driven by timpani rolls and mark-like drumbeats, distantly reminiscent of the Baroque rhetorical figure 'katabasis'.

In bar 19 there begins a large-scale crescendo of apocalyptic proportions over a march rhythms. New material and figures are added layer by layer, creating an impression of wild lamentation. Following a climax and consequent collapse, a gradual process of disintegration sets in. All that remains are the ostinato elements, which were always present as a permanent background and which ultimately, from bar 156, draw all of the figures into the maelstrom of a "marche funèbre" leading to the original starting pitch "a". In a manner of speaking, this pitch forms the soul of the work. As Bialas wrote: "The piece also concludes with this pitch, and we hear it reverberating in the small timpani in a long after the other instruments have fallen silent" .

Referring to the difference between his work and Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration", Bialas shed revealing light on his own intensions: whereas Strauss seeks to depict an individual destiny, however transcendant at the end, Bialas's aim in "Introitus - Exodus" is to show Life itself in its primordial, archaic conditions: entrance, consummation and exit (whatever that exit may mean) can clearly be traced in the piece, even if it has no programme which one must know and follow. Hence the progress of the music in absolute terms has an unprogrammatic exterior meaning, and turns Bialas's musical language into a vital and profound experience. --Siegfried Mauser

Art by Jonathan Ryan

Lucie Vítková - With Voice

pelodelperro 2017-12-03 | Ideas and Techniques (2014)

Lucie Vítková, accordions, harmonica, voice

This album gathers some of the ideas and techniques I collected through my practice as an improviser, introduced by three of my accordions. In every piece I tried to portray certain phenomena in their pure, concentrated form to make their individual characters clear. Every song is like a mechanism with a specific kind of natural behavior, which determines its musical structure. --Lucie Vítková

Art by Walter Richard Sickert

Daniel Barbiero - Fifteen Miniatures for Prepared Double Bass

pelodelperro 2017-11-30 | Fifteen Miniatures for Prepared Double Bass (2017)

danielbarbiero.wordpress.com

Art by Antonio José Samudio

Jacob Druckman - Lamia

pelodelperro 2017-11-24 | Lamia, for soprano & orchestra (1976)

Jan de Gaetani, mezzo-soprano

The Louisville Orchestra
Jorge Mester

The magic of music has seldom celebrated the music of magic with as much force, directness and power as in Jacob Druckman's remarkable work for soprano and orchestra, Lamia. Commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Lamia was premiered on April 20, 1974, under the batons of Julius Hegyi and Robert Kogan. The work was enlarged in 1976 with an additional movement based on a Malaysian folk conjuration. The new version was premiered by Pierre Boulez and David Gilbert with the New York Philharmonic in 1976, and was hailed as "a work of considerable imaginative power, imagery, and craftsmanship."

The incredible artistry of mezzo-soprano Jan de Gaetani, soloist at all the performances, figured largely in the composition of the work. Turning to the world of the occult, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer gathered together seven widely diverse texts - a "lucky" number - in order to celebrate those magical metaphysical powers to which people have always turned - whether an innocent provincial maiden longing for a husband, a frightened traveler warding off thieves or even death, or those darker figures like Medea whose terrifying links to the supernatural have always played havoc with the world's idea of the natural.

Lamia, a mythical witch and sorceress, has long been associated with the occult. Her name as the title of the present work is not meant to personify the soloist, but to evoke the mystical atmosphere which impelled the work's creation. The piece begins with a "Folk Conjuration to make one courageous" from Lorraine, chanted by the soloist midst a subdued menacing accompaniment. The second movement opens with a quotation from Ovid in which the soloist virtually becomes the tormented Medea. Suddenly, she is no longer Medea but an innocent French maiden beseeching the moon for a glimpse of her future husband. Those sudden character shifts are central to Druckman's conception. The soloist - the sorceress - becomes another being in an instant because all existence is potentially within her life force. This feature of the work is also reflected in the unexpected - and quite wonderful - stops and starts in the orchestra. The third movement is a conjuration from Malaysia "against death or other absence of the soul." Then, in a quotation from Druckman's earlier Animus 2, the soprano begins the final movement by becoming an instrument, and pitting one conductor against the other with teasing magical sounds, bewitchingly transcending text. The figure of Medea is then evoked once more with a powerful quotation - words and music - from a 1649 opera by Pier Francesco Cavalli entitled Il Giasone, initially played by the smaller of the two orchestras. Suddenly, the soloist turns to the conductor of the large orchestra and becomes Isolde, exclaiming of herself, "Entartet Geschlecht!" ("Degenerate offspring!"), then concludes the Cavalli quotation. Finally, the larger orchestra swells as Druckman's own music accompanies Isolde's powerful incantation from the beginning of Wagner's opera. The work ends with an eerie text, a conglomeration of words worn in the 16th century on one's person as a "periapt" or charm against thieves.

To achieve his own musical sorcery, Druckman divides the orchestra into two unequal parts, each with its own conductor. The resulting sonorities are tantalizing, spooky, poignant and evocative. But more than that, the orchestral division allows the soloist to interact with them in a unique and beguiling way, cajoling them, mocking them, infusing conflict. The orchestra's percussion section is extremely rich, including many of the newer instruments that have become part of contemporary symphonic sound. A spring coil with sizzles is used with particularly haunting results. [First Edition Records ‎– LS 764]

Art by Hanna Ilczyszyn

Yasukazu Amemiya - Monochrome Sea

pelodelperro 2017-11-22 | Monochrome Sea, for solo percussionist & tape (1976)

Monochrome Sea is also accompanied by a poem by Amemiya himself. The piece is a fantasy depicting the quiet drama played out in the depths of the sea. Rapid movements are suppressed to the greatest degree and an attempt is made to create a monochrome but rich sound surface. A linear structure is evident in this piece which features the use of intervals based on the pitch C, especially C-E, C-F, C-G, C-A flat, virtuoso performance on the marimba and timpani, continuous sounds produced by rubbing a vibraphone with a bow, and a tape which sounds as if it has been electronically produced. Although there are sometimes passages of great excitement, the drama of the sea bottom is controlled by images of stillness and depth. This play of tonal colors, rich in reverberations and overtones, never denying emotional release, occurs as a rejoicing in the bond between man and nature. It is a humanistic world which continues to be expressed, this being brought into relief and emphasized especially by the romantic singing of the marimba. [RVC-2154]

"Monochrome Sea"

drops of light fallen on the surface of the water
ignorant of their final destination
as dwellers in the sea
momentary meetings recur and recur
with the living and the non-living
aiming further and further into the depths
their long vertical beams end in
total stillness on the rocky seabed
like the gentle rocking of a cradle
only the water's gentle flow
permeates the skin, induces sleep
everything loses its color
spreads out over the surface
arabesques in an ink sketch
drawn by the black seaweed
sudden transformation
a crystal translucent mass of cold water
the battle of the waters coming into contact
woven on the projecting screen of the seabed
the ink sketch twisting and turning in the depths --Yasukazu Amemiya

Art by John Virtue

Neil Welch - 12 Moons

pelodelperro 2017-11-19 | 12 moons, for solo saxophone (2013)

I am always struck by the bare, earthen expansiveness of Southern California. The fields look so pristine from the freeway but underfoot the dirt is clotted, cracked and smells of manure and chemicals. I recorded this piece in mid-day, on a sunny, clear afternoon outside Gilroy. I had my band-mate Chris drop me off at the side of the freeway on his way to the gas station. I recorded at the base of a small hill that separated the freeway onramp from a brown, dusty wheat field that went on for miles. I set the recorder in my case and knelt on the ground to record.

During this improvisation I created puckish sounds on the horn, selecting tones that had a ringing quality when articulated short against one another. I indeterminately selected pitches to create these melodies, and as the improvisation evolved I began threading the pitches together. I used a new technique to do this, lowering my jaw considerably while using a great amount of back pressure. I held my tongue against the reed and forced my air while cupping the back of my tongue against the reed to create pops of sound. I was surprised to hear the sustain between the percussive pops and smears. --Neil Welch

Art by Edith Purer

Herbert Eimert - Epitaph für Aikichi Kuboyama

pelodelperro 2017-03-13 | Epitaph für Aikichi Kuboyama, for speakers and human voice (1957-62)

Richard Münch, voice

Emboldened by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, the United States was keen to bolster its nuclear arsenal as it entered into an arms race with the Soviet Union. The remote reefs of Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, which had come under American occupation during the war, were identified as a suitable test site, and the 167 Bikinians were forced to relocate to other parts of the Marshall Islands. Between 1946 and 1958, 23 nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll, leaving the region contaminated and uninhabitable.

On 1 March 1954, the United States conducted an atmospheric test of a new hydrogen bomb, with the code name ‘Castle Bravo’. The most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, it produced a radioactive yield 3 times higher than scientists had predicted. Combined with strong winds, the nuclear fallout reached far across the Marshall Islands, causing radiation sickness among the inhabitants and leading to high levels of cancer and birth defects for years to come.

While the world had long turned a blind eye to the suffering of the Pacific islanders, the Castle Bravo incident caused international outrage due to the misfortune suffered by the Japanese crew of Lucky Dragon No.5 (Daigo Fukuryū Maru). Although this tuna fishing boat should have been at a safe distance from the explosion, 80 miles from Bikini Atoll and outside the danger zone set by American officials, the unexpected potency of the bomb led the fishermen to be deluged by radioactive ash, which they unwittingly cleaned from the ship’s deck with their bare hands. In the days that followed, the 23 crew members fell victim to acute radiation syndrome. Their recovery was hindered by the US government’s refusal to reveal the composition of the fallout, for reasons of national security, and, in a double tragedy, all were inadvertently infected with hepatitis C during treatment. However, amazingly, all but one would survive the experience.

The death of Lucky Dragon’s radio operator, Aikichi Kuboyama, fuelled the burgeoning anti-nuclear movement both in Japan and across the world. The fisherman’s final words, “I pray that I am the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb”, touched a nerve at a time when America’s nuclear stockpile was proliferating rapidly. The country’s armoury of nuclear weapons would rise from 299 in 1950, to a high of over 31,000 devices in 1965 (the Soviet Union would reach a high of almost 40,000 nuclear weapons in 1980). American artist Ben Shahn was one of those alarmed by this acceleration and horrified to hear about the devastation caused in his country’s pursuit of military supremacy, and the incident at Bikini Atoll would continue to haunt his creative output for years to come.

In 1957, Shahn accepted a commission to illustrate a series of articles about the contamination of Lucky Dragon No.5, that were published in Harper’s Magazine in early 1958. The following year he travelled to Southeast Asia and the experience reinforced his enthusiasm for Chinese and Japanese art. Upon his return in 1960, Shahn began a series of paintings on the same theme, highlighting the injustice wrought on the burned and poisoned Japanese fishermen and powerfully advocating an end to nuclear testing. In the Lucky Dragon paintings, Shahn’s signature style is enhanced by design elements drawn from Japanese artistic traditions, while the heavy palette and scenes of lamentation provide a confrontational record of the nuclear anxiety that gripped people around the world.

Together with the writer Richard Hudson, Shahn later brought together some of his Lucky Dragon illustrations and paintings in the book "Kuboyama and the Saga of the Lucky Dragon," published in 1965. While Shahn’s leftist principles and socially-directed art were viewed with suspicion by many in the United States, this series of work brought him great acclaim in Japan and across Southeast Asia. Part of Shahn and Hudson’s book is available to view online. [espionart.wordpress.com/author/espionart]

Art by Ben Shahn

Peter Michael Hamel - Gestalt für Orchester

pelodelperro 2017-03-05 | Gestalt für Orchester (Figure for Orchestra) (1980)

Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
Cristóbal Halffter

This work is based on a nine-bar passage which is taken up and varied many times in the course of section I, and later as well. Intrinsically, this passage owes its character to the scale B-C-F-E-A-G sharp-G-D-B flat, which governs all four sections of the piece. In its acoustical form, however, it is given to upper-register string sonorities based on a', to the sonorities of the piano, vibraphone and xylophone, and to the trumpets and woodwinds. The e''' in the piccolo dominates and delimits the upper register. These few bars present "breaths" of sound entering peacefully at half-bar intervals.

At first glance, the form of section I may give cause for surprise. The expressive character of the basic figure is subjected to a process of progressive erosion: a conflicting pizzicato structure takes up an increasing amount of space -- three, five and finally 13 bars. Thus section I seems to be riddled with fissures, torn apart by crevasses. On the other hand, the initial passage expands its tonal ambitus to C and is enriched by pivoting 2nds in the deep winds. The conflict between the breathing sounds and the pizzicato attacks from the strings leads ultimately (once the fundamental has changed again from C to E) to a fortissimo gesture which ushers in section 2.

Section 2 evolves from a quiet sonority into a modal-periodic continuum, and hence into a mode of musical thought which finds expression in the overlapping of repeating figues. At first these repetitive layers are given to the piano, marimba and alto flute. Gradually, however, the texture incorporates other formulations and instruments and is accented by striking eight-note figures in the trombones and horns rising to the octave. This section too expands its tonal ambitus, this time from D flat to d", culminating in a 12-note chord. Following these two sections, which pose a conflict and yet remain meditative and subdued, section 3 is given the function of developing the compositional elements and the areas of expression. Seeking to strike a balance between East and West, Hamel begins by presenting the pizzicato structure in frenetic abbreviation and superimposing repeating figures upon it. Even the basic figure itself is manipulated, its half-bar gestures either being welded into mighty blocks of sound or blurring as the unaccented portions of the bar are filled in. This entire process ultimately leads to nine chords based on the fundamental C.

Section 4 is the shortest in the piece. It takes up elements from section 2, extracting the modal-periodic continuum and again developing the eight-note figure in the trombones and horns before ending with a virtually literal reminiscence of the original basic figure. --Wolfgang Burde

Art by Charline von Heyl

Walter Zimmermann - Phran

pelodelperro 2017-02-24 | Phran (1st part from Lokale Musik), for orchestra (1978)

Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra
Antoni Wit

"Lokale Musik" is divided into three cycles. The first is an orchestral piece called "Ländler-Topographien" (with movements entitled "Phran", "Topan" and "Topaphran"), the second is called "Leichte Tänze" (Easy Dances), and the third and last cycle bears the title "Stille Tänze" (Silent Dances).

The entire project is based on dance melodies from old peasant chapbooks and music albums which Zimmermann gathered in the course of several field trips. His collection is made up of waltzes, "Zwiefache", "Schottische", mazurkas, "Rheinländer", galops and so forth.

The "Ländler-Topographien" last about 50 minutes, and establish the relation between music and landscape. Part I ["Phran"] probes the intrinsic structure of ländler tunes. On the one hand, the characteristics of a landscape -- its vegetation, the lay of the land, geological formations, climate -- shape and modify the music over the ages, with typical features of the landscape finding their image in melodies. In other words, the intrinsic structure of melodies is a vehicle for the features of a landscape. On the other hand, melodies can be continually revitalized by the structure of the landscape.

In "Phran" the intrinsic potential of the melodies -- here a collection of eight-bar ländler -- is divided into melodic, harmonic and rhythmic components, each component being gradated into a scale of 12 values. The composer uses the mean values of these components to draw relations to the orchestration in such a way that expression does not come into play and thus the inherent structure of the ländler is revealed. The instruments are assigned melodic cells. Now the original melody is probed to establish whether or not it can be represented by these cells. The result is a grid-like polyphony, the melody appearing in scattered fragments. The same process is applied to the harmonies, which are interrupted by rests, and to the rhythm.

"'Phran", the first part of the orchestral piece "Ländler-Topographien", presents the interior landscape of a melody, turns it inside out and projects it into the space of the orchestra. --Gisela Gronemeyer

Art by Wilhelm Carl August Zimmer

Cristóbal Halffter - Noche pasiva del sentido

pelodelperro 2017-02-23 | Noche pasiva del sentido, for voice, 2 percussionists & tape (1970)

Sigune Von Osten, soprano
John Dvorachek, Markus Steckeler, percussion

Inspired on John of the Cross' Noche oscura del alma (Dark Night of the Soul).

Art by Salvador Dalí

Jacob Druckman - Animus III

pelodelperro 2017-02-21 | Animus III, for clarinet and tape (1969)

Arthur Bloom, clarinet

The genesis of Animus III began with my asking Arthur Bloom to record some clarinet sounds as sources from which I could build the tape part of the work. The recording session was late at night. We worked efficiently and informally as we are good friends and colleagues of many years standing. The tape of that session contained not only the brilliant clarinet sounds of this extraordinary musician, but also the vocal sounds of the session--the laughter, the banter, the irritation, the fatigue, the impatience. Over all this fluttered the ephemeral virtuosity-untouched, uncommitted, disassociated from the human dynamic. As I worked with the tape in the following months, I found myself more and more fascinated with the recorded sounds of the irrational dynamic. These sounds began to shape the image of the work as strongly as the instrumental material from which, I believe, they are eventually inseparable.

The completed work assumes a surreal, aloof arch-virtuosity which follows its whimsy through many states leading to an eventual decay into a mindless hysteria. --Jacob Druckman

Art by Anna Kuyumcuoglu

Alain Savouret - Larbre et caetera

pelodelperro 2017-02-20 | L'arbre et caetera, for tape (1972)

L'arbre et caetera for tape realized at studio 52 of Groupe de recherches musicales de l'ORTF. Premiered August 2, 1972 at Cloître des Célestins during the 26th Festival d'Avignon as a tetraphonic work. This is the stereophonic reduced version.

Art by Rachel Bingaman

Luis de Pablo - Chamán

pelodelperro 2017-02-19 | Chamán, for magnetic tape (1976)

Chamán was recorded between December 1975 and February 1976 at McGill University with the aid of Ann Moschensky, under the Festival of Ufe's (Ottawa) commision.

Art by Marianne Maderna

Gavin Gamboa - Anima extasis

pelodelperro 2017-02-16 | Anima extasis, for string quartet (2015)

I. Allegro non molto
II. Scherzo
III. Lent
IV. Vivace

Mischa Lakirovich, violin
Zlata Grekov, violin
Rodney Wirtz, viola
Paula Hochhalter, cello

Recorded on January 13th, 2015 at The Hobby Shop
Produced & Engineered by Ali Helnwein

Bourbonese Qualk - Deadbeat

pelodelperro 2017-02-15 | The Spike (1986)

‘The Spike’ was recorded during the period 1984-1985 and published by the Berlin based Dossier/Atonal label while the group were involved in organising the Berlin Atonal festival. Parts of Side 2 of the album is a recording of pieces made for a dance and film performance at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London in 1985.

discogs.com/es/Bourbonese-Qualk-The-Spike/release/176959

Erhard Karkoschka - quattrologe

pelodelperro 2016-04-16 | quattrologe, for string quartet (1966)

I. evolution and metamorphosis I
II. dispute
III. metamorphosis II
IV. serenade pathétique
V. metamorphosis III and destruction

Westphal-Quartett

The first, third and fifth movements form a unified whole punctuated by the second and fourth movements, which form, so to speak, extraterritorial episodes. The duration of the movements shows that this relation is conscious and deliberate: the 88 seconds of the third movements and the 100 seconds of the fifth exactly equal the 188 seconds of the first. Even their content follows this subdivision. The third and fifth movements draw respectively on the two main processes found in the first (though ignoring the number and length of the sections): namely, the third reverses the process of developmental variation which Karkoschka calls "metamorphosis", and the fifth confronts the "evolution" of the first movement with "destruction".

Evolution and destruction are the opposing poles at the beginning and end of the piece. They turn the work into a unified whole, providing a framework, as it were, for an organic, cyclical process. Equally cyclical are the "metamorphoses" in the first and third movements, which by standing in a mirror relation to each other impart unity to these movements too. In the first movement the opening thematic "block" is extended and stretched, and then restored to its original form: in several sections this is followed by a temporal compression of the opening block, producing a broad intensification of the tonal motion which only at the end returns to the block in its original form. The third movement moves in precisely the opposite direction: opening block - compression - opening block - stagnation - return to opening block. The difference from variation form is unmistakable: it is not the variation of a theme which is at issue here, but rather the filling in of an overriding formal design, the organisation of a process in time.

Karkoschka has entitled this string quartet "quattrologe", i.e. "quadro-logues" or "conversations with four participants". The canon presents him with one optional means of realizing the many oossibilities inherent in a conversational situation -- simultaneity and succession, agreement and divergence, separation and unification. Thus, the title of the work finds its most apt, but certainly not its sole correspondence, in the second movement, the "dispute" -- which, significantly, ends in a canon. --Christian Martin Schmidt

Art by Serban Savu

Mauricio Kagel - Music for Renaissance Instruments

pelodelperro 2016-04-14 | Music for Renaissance Instruments (1965-66)

Collegium Instrumentale
Mauricio Kagel

This work contains neither prediction, pointers to the future, nor a comforting return to the past: the use of Renaissance instruments here has no programmatic purpose in any general sense. The only decisive fact is that these instruments correspond to my tonal concept better than any present-day stringed and wind instruments could.

The systematic alienation of conventional instrumental sound, which comes into its own in the material and methods of the most modem music, seemed to me to justify an attempt, for once, to reverse the normally accepted view on the subject of the composition of tone colour. The individual quality of restraint which belongs to the nature of these Renaissance instruments made it all the easier for me to introduce each of them in its own unadulterated tonal character. While still a student of musicology in Argentina I began to sketch a similar piece, but I dropped the project at that time, since one of the essential conditions for bringing the idea to fruition--the formation of a truly orchestral ensemble of early instruments--could not then be fulfilled. In the renaissance of the Renaissance which we are now experiencing such an ensemble has become feasible, because copies of most of the instruments have recently been made, and numerous musicians have become proficient in playing them.

Only the formation of complete families of typical instruments, played by 23 musicians, could produce a sound picture true to the period in question. (All the Renaissance instruments required for my composition were represented in the Theatrum Instrumentorum of the "Syntagma Musicum" by Michael Praetorius). During recent years I have become so familiar with each of the instruments used that I could think out its tonal function afresh, and have been able to develop the performing techniques beyond the conventional limits. Even an instrument such as the recorder, which is closely associated with home and school music making of a very different kind, proved to be extremely versatile, and more suitable for use in new instrumental music than, for example, the transverse flute.

Each instrumental part of this work was composed like a solo line. However, the parts were put together as a full score, written in more or less normal notation. Other versions of the work are also possible, using any number of players from two to twenty-two, in every combination of instruments drawn from the original scoring. These reduced versions are entitled "Chamber Music for Renaissance Instruments". The concept of an ad hoc orchestra made up of whatever instruments are available--in accordance with the performing practice of the Renaissance period--is here taken literally, so that a degree of variation is possible which cannot be foreseen by the composer. This work (1965/66) was written in memoriam Claudio Monteverdi. Nevertheless it contains no collages of old music. --Mauricio Kagel

Art by Anne Vallayer-Coster

Boguslaw Schäffer - Symphony

pelodelperro 2015-12-01 | Symphony (1966)

Symphony is the first work of any considerable length realised by the Experimental Studio of the Polish Radio; its composition was spread out over more than a year. The basic idea was to transpose into purely electronic music the notion of the assembly of sounds of different origin that the word "symphony" suggests. The realisation of the work demanded close co-operation between the composer and the engineer, Bohdan Mazurek, who contributed a great deal in the suggestion and provision of suitable apparatus. --David Rissin

Art by Max Weber

Aribert Reimann - Inane

pelodelperro 2015-12-01 | Inane, soliloquy for soprano and orchestra (1968)

Joan Carroll, soprano

Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, München
Andrzej Markowski

In 1968 a vocal opus of great peculiarity and dramatic character originated: Inane, soliloquy for soprano and orchestra. It had been commissioned by SFB, a Berlin radio station, for Joan Carroll, the American opera singer living in Germany, who sang the part in the premiere in Berlin in January of 1969. The Latin title means "emptiness" or "cavity". The text by Manuel Thomas deals with a very serious subject: the psychic condition of a woman whose baby is removed before delivery. In its mixture of anguish, pain, rage, and remembrance it is a parallel to Erwartung by Arnold Schonberg to the text of Marie Pappenheim. And the score of Reimann in its expressionist spirit also is indebted to this monodrame of the year 1909. It obviously restrains in favour of the solo part the sound of the orchestra broken up in many ways, an emotional and strangely scanned prose of the winds and the multitone chords of the low strings. The two artists wrote: "Inane would not have originated without Joan Carroll. Only her personality in which the most diverse inspirations and means of art coexist side by side caused us to write a piece for her in which all her capabilities were to be utilized."

The text with its alternating dramatic and lyric heights and lows has been set to music for her. In it there are naive folk tunes alongside with hysterical declamations, dramatic outbursts like the one in front of the empty bed and when seeing letters from the beloved, grimacing passages like the one spoken at a high pitch of the nocturnal thief with sustained chords and jazz-like pizzicati of the double-basses, powerful increases in volume and nuances fading away. In this pandemonium Miss Carroll raged and belcantoed with a convincing inner commitment.
--H. H. Stuckenschmidt

Art by Joaquín Jara

Peter Maxwell Davies - Eight Songs for a Mad King

pelodelperro 2015-11-30 | Eight Songs for a Mad King, for male voice & instrumental ensemble, J. 80 (1969)
*Text by Randolph Stow and George III

I. The Sentry (King of Prussia's Minuet)
II. The Country Walk (La Promenade)
III. The Lady-in-Waiting (Miss Musgrave's Fancy)
IV. To be sung on the water (The Waterman)
V. The Phantom Queen (He's ay a-kissing me)
VI. The Counterfeit (Le Contre fait)
VII. Country Dance (Scotch Bonnett)
VIII. The Review (A Spanish March)

Julius Eastman, baritone

The Fires of London
Peter Maxwell Davies

"This Organ was George the third for Birds to sing," reads a note accompanying a small mechanical organ willed to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in 2000. Its previous owner had once shown it to Randolph Stow, who was so intrigued by its music and its history that he composed a series of eight poems, which Peter Maxwell Davies then set to music and devised as a semi-theatrical work for male vocalist, piano, violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and percussion. The resulting work, Eight Songs for a Mad King, was completed in 1969 and stands as one of the most distinctive, and arguably one of the most disturbing, musical works from the twentieth century. Inspired by the little mechanical organ's repertoire of eight tunes, the eight songs depict several documented and imagined events from King George III's famous and well-documented descent into insanity. The work draws on various extremes of compositional and performance technique to explore the emotional and expressive extremes of a disturbed mind, and remains the best-known example of Davies' eclectic musical style.

Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of this work is the timbral array utilized by the vocalist. The part spans a range of over four octaves, and employs all manner of noises: Sprechgesang (something between highly inflected speech and song), falsetto, glissandi, portamenti, grunts, burbles, howls, and screeches. In the course of the work, the King attempts to teach his bullfinches to sing; the birds are "played" by the winds and strings, who perform within cages. This creates surreal dialogues between voice and instruments, demanding incredible virtuosity from both. The effect has a powerful stage impact; at one point in the seventh song, the King grows so frustrated with this enterprise that he grabs the violinist's instrument and smashes it to pieces.

Other dramatic associations are created as well; the "Lady-in-Waiting" whom George tries to engage in conversation in Scene Three is represented by the flute; his rant in Scene Six is largely directed at the clarinet; the cellist takes the role of the River Thames in Scene Four, carrying the King momentarily away from his troubles; and in the first and last scenes the percussionist stands as the King's sentry, always keeping him under close guard and finally escorting His howling Highness off stage at the end with solemn, whip-like drum beats. The piano throughout assumes no particular roles but alternately provides commentary on the proceedings and takes the part of harpsichord continuo for the numerous musical quotations and allusions.

Representation even extends beyond instrumentation; in one scene, the notes on the page of the score are arranged so as to resemble a cage visually -- the one in which the bullfinches are kept, as well as the one in which the King feels himself trapped. The music itself throughout the work is a strange hodgepodge of various materials, from foxtrot to Handel's Messiah, the highly anachronistic juxtapositions creating the kind of disorientation for the listener that George himself might have experienced during his less-than-lucid moments. [allmusic.com]

Art by Sir William Beechey

Roland Kayn - Simultan

pelodelperro 2015-11-27 | Simultan: Cybernetic Project for 1-5 rooms (1972)

1. Monostabile
2. Sources Ergodiques, Part 1 (27:48)
3. Sources Ergodiques, Part 2 (44:05)
4. Logatome (1:00:34)
5. Matrix (1:29:44)
6. Invarianten (1:51:31)

simultaneous
is no
concrete --
electronic --
computer music --
quite on the contrary a music between
these scopes:
cybernetic music.

The acoustic signals produced by a number of x sound sources, which were unforeseeable in their chronological sequence, have been referred to an information-esthetical reality, not to a numeral reality, by means of preliminarily given or self-stabilizing adjustable res. control circles and multiply reproduced micro-esthetic single operation.

simultan
is no
organized --
structured --
aleatorical music --
quite on the contrary a music crystallizing out of the diffuse coincidence of processes running from parallel towards each other.

simultan
is
produced against
the prevailing
compulsions of
production --
performance --
consumptions.

simultan
is
exclusively conceived
towards h e a r i n g :
between
... - hearing
and
pick-up
detecting
sounding
balancing
listening into it
over-hearing
hearing
listening
up to
subsiding
to hear
are existing the most various hybrids of the auditive behaviour which are obligatory for the perception of this music.

Cybernetic music is decisively determined by process planning, at regulating and control processes according to certain criteria that depend alternately on each other. Characteristic for this planning are the circle relations, i.e. that during the information flow of signs (p. e. notes -- interpretes) or signals (electro-acoustical switching circuits) there will occur backsignals relating to one programme which can accordingly control the future process.

Beginning with my first instrumental-cybernetic works, Galaxis and Allotropie of the years 1962-64 up to Simultan (1970-72) the criterium was determining for the process planning as can be seen from an entropy maximum - i.e. a nearly equal repartition and probability of signs and signals - where by means of preliminarily given control processes the receiver-information is not predisposed, but at the moment of the cooperation of multiple control systems it is derived during realisation.

The claim for the future should be to invent systems which put the organic and automatic regulating processes into a more close and more direct contact to each other. However, the use of exclusively machinery-cybernetic systems within the compository process planning should only be interesting for the establishment of the basic models. The direct sound production with these means on the basis of computer controlled oscillating circles leads, as this has already been evident in the primary stage of the electronic music of the fifties, to a reduction of the psychoacoustical perception channel. --Roland Kayn

*Realized at Instituut voor Sonologie, Utrecht in collaboration with Studio de Recherches et de Structurations Electroniques Auditives, Bruxelles.

Art by Lucas Cranach the Elder

Luciano Berio - Melodrama

pelodelperro 2015-11-26 | Melodrama, for tenor and eight instruments (1970)

Gerald English, tenor

The London Sinfonietta
Luciano Berio

Melodrama was later modified for incorporation into Berio's "Opera" (1970). The title refers to a musical form fusing speech and music that goes back as far as the grave-digging scene in Beethoven's Fidelio and the Wolfs-Glen music in Weber's Der Freischütz. More often, however, melodrama denotes a composition for speaking voice and piano. There are examples of such pieces by Schubert and Schumann-and above all, Richard Strauss' dramatic treatment of Tennyson's poem "Enoch Arden." Nearer our own time, Schoenberg was fascinated by the melodrama, and his use of Sprechgesang (notably in Pierrot lunaire and Ode to Napoleon) may be seen as an off-shoot of the genre. Berg's Lulu also contains an important melodrama.

Berio's Melodrama is basically a parody of such pieces; within the context of Opera it relates to the episodes concerning the Titanic and can be heard as an attempt at giving a public performance by a nervous and decidedly tourist-class artist (for this reason, the recording incorporates some less than discreet audience participation). The ensemble accompanying the singer is the type of band that might well be found on a large ocean liner: piano, electronic organ, percussion, flute, clarinet, cello and bass. The piece falls into two parts: in the first the performer attempts a rendering of part of a poem by Heine, the second note of which-a top G-presents him with an apparently insuperable problem; the second part develops toward a continuous lyricism, and here the artist, no longer weighed down by words or by the need to give a "performance" (he seems now to be singing to himself), is able to sing freely. Like Berio's Recital I, Melodrama moves from an inherently schizophrenic situation (the violent contrast between the Heine text and the deliberately cliché-ridden narrated incidents) toward a newfound tenderness and compassion. Harmonically speaking, the first part grows gradually outward in both directions from its pivotal note of G (the electronic organ, for instance, slowly builds up a held cluster throughout this section) until a point of maximum complexity is reached; the second section, by contrast, is harmonically static. The alliterative spoken text of Melodrama is by Berio himself. --Misha Donat

Art by Charles Dixon

Hans Otte - passages

pelodelperro 2015-11-23 | passages, for piano & orchestra (1965)

Hans Otte, piano

Sinfonieorchester des Südwestfunks
Ernest Bour

Compositions in the sixties consisted largely of artistic reflexion on social criticism, becoming part of a general process of dissolution of existing structures to the point of the liquidation of aesthetic values. Hans Otte also wrote a number of pieces at this time which, although quite different in their realization, were nevertheless an attempt at a similar theme: autonomous music is not the subject of composition but the reflexion on various circumstances of composing. In "passages" not only is the way out of a technical and thus also aesthetic dilemma sought, but the dilemma itself is primarily the subject of the composition.

This work was commissioned by the Sudwestfunk and was written in 1965/66 and first performed in the same year in Donaueschingen to the accompaniment of a full size scandal. In it, Otte tries to elucidate a basic concept which, however, is bound to remain a subjective hypothesis: Otte preceeds from the thesis that the possibility of escaping the traditional categories and parameters, especially functional harmony, melody, and periodic construction, is an illusion and every supposedly new technique in composition must necessarily end up in rigid, fixed formulas.

Against this background,"passages" is seen to be a comprehensive study, with the techniques of alienation, on what is in any case inevitable. Otte says in connection with this: "For this reason in particular the inclusion of traditional and conventional models of all these so wonderful and worn out components, which are now to be seen from a new angle and to be made again so famous that the distance to which they are removed by such composition can be perceived by and in them." And: "Given that one does not agree to the existing circumstances and does not wish to confirm and idealise them constantly in new compositions, this may be a possible way of justifying one's wretched existence as a composer in this ossified world and under its conditions" ("Alte Klange in neuen Kompositionen", Melos 1966). The first bar, that is to say, the first small sound group on the piano is analysed by Otte in nine points which are too detailed to be reproduced here. They demonstrate how it is that these apparently disconnected notes and their alienation and concentration constitute a traditional cadence: tonic - subdominant (resp. Neapolitan sixth) - dominant - tonic. The means used include: giving new functions to notes, extreme registers in which the intervals are no longer audible, and the compression of the process: the Neapolitan sixth, the dominant with its resolution and the tonic all sound at once.

"Through these small and in part almost insignificant alterations it was possible to elicit from even so rigid a pattern as a cadence a meaning which was independent of its harmonic function." The example must suffice as a guide: this artistic procedure is the basis of the whole work. This point of departure alone, however, would result in one-sidedness and academicism. Otte's work gains its complexity from the inclusion of criticism and irony which gives rise to the assumption that he is not quite convinced of the "new significance" of the old material. The tension in the composition is created largely by the constant interchange of these two planes. Various forms of association lead to various genres and concerto forms as, for example, the string quartet or the classical piano concerto which is partly represented here as an ironical controversy, at the end of which the pianist "has no choice other than to play a tremolo on the last notes left to him on the already long since closed lid of the piano". The accelerando C Major scale which ends on D flat is meant to be a "whining recollection of countless and soulless piano lessons". The orchestral pathos of a bombastic D major chord is, so to speak, precipitated by Otte from the platform and the Solo Concerto ends with a wondrously bright chord of C major in the brass and woodwind. A further plane of alienation is the extension of the traditional instrumental ensembles (song whistle, sirens, plastic triangles and noise of every sort), which has a scenic effect beyond the continuous principle of gesture.

The difficulty for the listener lies in the fact that the first plane of construction - in particular the alienation of the cadences - cannot be heard. With the motto which Hans Otte has attached to his article on the piece: "No matter how we begin it, it ends as a melody" (Christian Wolff to John Cage) a certain air of resignation spreads but which is nevertheless offset and qualified by an evident joy in the ingenious construction of the twofold plane. --Ute Schalz-Laurenze

Art by Rachel Rose

Charles Chaynes - Erzsébet

pelodelperro 2015-11-21 | Erzsébet, opera pour une femme seule en six moments lyriques d'apres "Vers Bathory" de Ludovic Janvier (1983)

Christiane Eda-Pierre, vocals
Michael Lonsdale, vocals [spoken]
Pierre Doukan, violin
Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Paris
Elgar Howarth

Erzsebet Bathory, a member of one of Hungary's most illustrious families, was born in 1560. She died on 21 August 1614, immured by a judicial decision in her castle of Csejthe, an eagle's nest perched on rocky promontory. From childhood Erzsebet Bathory inhabited a mysterious world, as if absent in the depths of her being behind the mask of her cold and singular beauty. She became notorious for her acts of cruelty, torturing and having tortured a large number of young girls in the cellars of her castle. Caught in the act by the Palatine Thurzo, the "bloody Countess" was condemned to life imprisonment. Her accomplices were burnt at the stake. Her life was lived outside of a human time scheme. Obsessed by a strange and unfathomable eroticism, and by witchcraft, she fell prey to a profound intoxication which engulfed her forever in her irremediable solitude.

The work is set in the room of the castle of Csejthe where Erzsebet, condemned to be immured, will spend the last three years of her life. "It is not the agreeable but the unfathomable that is fascinating." This observation could be regarded as a key to all of Erzsebet's conduct during the six "moments" of the composition. There are two important elements: the mirror in a double circle in which she obsessively looks at herself, and the dresses she keeps on changing in the unconscious hope of finding herself.

The work is divided into six "moments." Clearly this is in accordance with Ludovic Janvier's text, but it is also in the interests of musical proportion and form. Each "moment" has a predominant musical colour. The writing of this score was guided in the first place by the need to establish primordial cells which would be the basic material. The key points were therefore written before the continuity of the piece. The basic cells, a kind of Leitmotiv, move about throughout the work. Each of these Leitmotivs corresponds to a psychological state of the heroine; because this work is more a subjective vision of the composer, of motivations, than of the acts of Erzsebet Bathory.

The orchestration, limited to 60 musicians, centres mainly around the experimentation with and combination of timbres. These are created by the use of all the possibilities of traditional instruments, but also by the addition of a Bronte. In the 16th century the region in which Erzsebet Bathory lived was strongly marked by the immigration pf gipsy musicians whom she liked listening to. Apart from their music, it is their origins, their ancestral sources in Northern India and Azerbaijan to which the linear curves allude. This takes the form of meanders, arabesques, and melismas given to the solo violin. All of this is, of course, a re-creation based on pivot intervals and a feeling of flexible improvisation. [Editions Ricordi]

Art by István Csók

François Bayle - Erosphère

pelodelperro 2015-11-17 | Erosphère (1982)

Erosphère is my name for that membrane of nerves which surrounds our world with its network of, waves modulating into an infinite number of frequencies; that cloud of infra- and supersensible heat radiating from megabillions of biological sources; that ring where the force of this cosmos of desire circulates.

We live within the Erosphère and desire is our destiny.

Audible vibrations are part of the continuum of that general vibrational state ranging from the very low frequency pulsation - for example the cycle of a human life - to the extremery hot and excessively dangerous rays of cosmic space.

The geometrical laws which surge together like waves on a wind-tossed sea - in the vibrational field, the laws of the octaves, the genesis of the harmonics, tonalities, phases - all have an intense existence in the narrow traveling band of frequencies our ear discerns.

To express the generality of these laws, to make them felt musically, is the dream - or the delirium - which mobilized me in Erosphère-. Simply to make it felt.

For example, by violently contracting or expanding masses of sound events (playing back acoustic images at speeded-up or slowed-down rates); distorting groups of frequencies on the computer by playing them through comb filters consisting of hundreds of fine teeth; making acoustic imprints of bodies on surfaces (comparable to Max Ernst's frottages or some of Yves Klein's pictures); producing reverberations which synthesize virtual spaces.

...let us explore the Erosphère a little further... --François Bayle

Art by Ivan Alifan

Horaţiu Rădulescu - Astray

pelodelperro 2015-11-10 | Astray, for double duo, op. 50 (1983)

Horaţiu Rădulescu , piano [sound icon]
Daniel Kientzy, sopranino saxophone, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, bass saxophone

Astray was composed for the Roma Villa Medici Musica Festival where it premiered in 1984. The score consists of 81 paintings using symbols from ancient languages. These 81 micro-music entities were photographed and projected as slides during the performance. In addition to its ancient alphabet symbol, each image contains precise indications for the two players: the saxophone player performs on six saxophones (bass, barytone, tenor, alto, soprano, sopranino) which hang from a frame, the other player performs on a Sound Icon [a grand piano laying vertically on its side, with the strings played by bowing.]

This duo plays simultaneously with another identical duo. Both duos perform the same score, but at different speeds. The first duo performs the score twice: slowly at first, faster the succeeding time the second duo performs the score once during the same time span very slowly.

All sounds notated in the score are performed live and are not electronically modulated. The cause (sound source) and the effect (sound parameters) are rendered unrecognizable by the special techniques of sound production.

In this particular studio recording, the two duos were recorded in playback with Daniel Kientzy and the composer. For a concert performance, 4 to 7 players are required (The Sound lcons (3 & 2) require 5 players); the two duos are disposed around the audience. The score, projected from slides, contributes to the visual environment. --Horaţiu Rădulescu

Art by Miriam Aroeste

Bernd Alois Zimmermann - Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu

pelodelperro 2015-11-07 | Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu, ballet noir en sept parties et une entrée (1968)

Rundfunks-Sinfonie-Orchester Köln
Michael Gielen

While the "Monologe" are representative of the period in which Zimmermann's "pluralism" was at its most intensive - the almost unbounded multi-layered structure of an entire world of ideas, Zimmermann pushes his idea of quotation and collage ad absurdum and this culminates in the "ballet noir" "Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu", a piece that consists solely in quotations from others, witty, humorous and full of bitter cynicism, almost misanthropically set to music; it is a most opulent music with hair-raising impact and reality which radiates with some coarseness a desperately macabre merriment and yet which turns into bitter earnestness at the end. Without doubt one of the few pieces of music combining inspired imagination and perfect mastery of his craft. In 1966 Zimmermann became a member of the Berlin Akademie der Künste. The music for "Ubu" was written for this occasion and first performed in 1968. Zimmermann: "The piece is a 'ballet noir' which is performed at a banquet at the Court of Ubu. The Academy of the country in which the piece set is commanded to attend the banquet - and at the end in the 'Marche du decervellage' is dispatched through the trap door: symbolic of the fate of a liberal academy under the reign of a usurper. In order to show up our absolutely disproportionate intellectual and cultural situation, musical collages of the most amusing and hardest tone are used; the piece is pure collage, based on dances of the 16th and 17th centuries, interspersed with quotations from earlier and contemporary composers. A farce which is seemingly merry, fat and greedy like Ubu himself: apparently an enormous prank, but for those who are able to hear beyond this it is a warning allegory, macabre and amusing at the same time." In the 20-minute work the basic features and actions of the main character are adapted from the surrealist novel by the French author Alfred Jarry. Ubu is the incarnation of a depraved bourgeois, a tyrant and mass murderer, boorish and coarse, who has made his way by murder from being a captain of a regiment of dragoons to become the Head of State. Zimmermann's work is divided into seven parts with an Entree in which all the colleagues of the music academy are "quoted". A work that surpasses by far Zimmermann's musical pluralism and without doubt is intended to have a political function. The climax is the "Marche du decervellage": a collage of quotations from Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie", Stockhausen's "Klavierstuck IX" (from which a chord on the piano is repeated, not as in the original 280 times but 631 times) and Berlioz's "March to Scaffold" from the "Symphonic fantastique". Hardly ever can descriptive music have been crueller, more destructive, more implacable; biting attacks against his contemporaries, musical marking time taken to absurdity, giving rise to brutality. The orchestra consists of large wood-wind, brass and percussion groups and only 4 double basses.

The use of musical quotation and the resulting quotation collage in imitation of literary and artistic collage reached its peak in the sixties in Zimmermann's "Ubu". The practice of quotation is thus overcome. The sorting and ordering of existing musical material as composition - and in this connection the composer's self-orientation in face of tradition and history, achieves a point of culmination in the works of the last five years of Zimmermann's life which is to remain unequalled. Quotation and quotation collages are extended in his works to higher and extra-musical significance within his peculiar philosophic "pluralistic method of composition". [Bestellnummer DMR 1013-15]

Art by Max Ernst

Claude Ballif - Phrases sur le souffle

pelodelperro 2015-11-03 | Phrases sur le souffle, for ensemble, Op. 25 (1958/1968)

Amélia Salvetti, mezzo-soprano

Ensemble Polyphonique et Ensemble Instrumental de I'O.R.T.F.
Charles Ravier

Phrases sur le souffle, originally written for voice and piano, was composed in 1958 at the request of Clara Henius, who was also the first to sing the work. The score was reconstructed in 1968 under the influence of Charles Ravier for its performance at the Festival of Avignon. Here we encounter a complete transformation of this strange work that is more than a simple orchestration. The human voice, a "fragile, triumphant sound in which the force and intelligence of humanity are concentrated," as Joseph Conrad has written, is presented as a field of investigations, each vowel being successively the object and the point of departure for studies in vocalization. This breath, carried by a simple yet carefully prepared voice, is as if caught at the birth of its human character, in order to be extended and multiplied in shattering reliefs and tones by the instrumental ensemble. This voice is finally magnified in the finale thanks to the choral support and by the superimposition of 5 vowels turning in a labyrinth of rhythms and timbres. --Bernard Bonaldi

Art by Jean-Léon Gérôme

Harrison Birtwistle - Silbury Air

pelodelperro 2015-10-31 | Silbury Air, for chamber orchestra (1977)

The London Sinfonietta
Elgar Howarth

"Music...want[s] to tell us something, or told us something we should not have missed, or [is] about to tell us something. This immanence of a revelation that does not take place is, perhaps, the aesthetic fact." -- Jorge Luis Borges

Something is on its way in Harrison Birtwistle's 1977 work Silbury Air: something dire is on its way, is racing to relay a splendid or terrible knowledge -- but it doesn't come to pass. Everything is in place: the sharp shine of ritual, the cycle of hush and outburst, the ceremonial straightjackets and incantational repetitions, the formal violence of a supreme order unfolding. To paraphrase Artaud, Birtwistle's 16-minute score for 15 players is a remarkable "music of cruelty," submitting to a preeminent determination, bound fiercely, rapt in tensions. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that Silbury Air smothers its epiphany, and keeps its secret. Birtwistle has been linked with many artists in many disciplines -- from playwright Aeschylus to painter Paul Klee -- but perhaps it is Borges' "aesthetic fact" which best serves as Silbury Air's epigraph-epitaph: it is music whose immanence of a revelation, amidst an incredibly immediate pressure, does not take place.

Something of this quality Birtwistle explains through his choice of title. "Do you know what Silbury [in the English countryside] is?," he once asked an interviewer. "It's a prehistoric mound, and it's a complete mystery...the whole geographic formation is like a hidden formality, an arcane place...It's like seeing a game board where you don't know what the rules are." Birtwistle also added the Borgesian trope that "when Silbury was excavated, it was found to have a labyrinth of hides or animal skins that created a sort of three-dimensional spider's web. They used to think that there was some sort of god or burial tomb in the middle. But there was nothing."

A maze of flayed skins with an empty center is certainly an appropriate metaphor for Silbury Air, whose entire trajectory takes place within an elaborate "pulse labyrinth" as Birtwistle calls it: an intricate series of subtly mutating rhythms, combining metric changes with tempo changes, form a kind of temporal vessel for an often deeply intuitive melodic, harmonic, and gestural activity. This stress engenders a gloriously kinetic anxiety; as material proliferates in ardent waves, it perpetually strains against the labyrinth's walls; slender, long-spun melodies are torn and clipped by constant jerks into new tempos and meters. The brilliance of Birtwistle's music here comes from a rigorous and mutual antagonism, and from its vicious ambidexterity: one hand binds the other to the work's very end in an astounding feat of unease, a simultaneous weighing of fragility and force parallel with the tragic method itself.

While this well-honed friction would grow to become one of Birtwistle's best formulae, it holds Silbury Air in a particularly thrilling vise-grip, so taut is the nature of conflict. Its Perseus is by Birtwistle doubly bound -- to the brutish Minotaur and the wise Daedalus, to beast and architect. [allmusic.com]

Art by David Inshaw

Jacob Druckman - Synapse/Valentine

pelodelperro 2015-10-25 | Synapse/Valentine, for electronic tape & contrabass (1971)

Alvin Brehm, contrabass

In Synapse the electronic and the live are juxtaposed but completely separate. The tape sounds are made entirely of electronic sources (one tiny exception - the voice of bassist Alvin Brehm for less than one second), and the instrumental Valentine is completely without electronics.

Synapse (n., the junction point of two neurons, across which a nerve impulse passes), aside from the exception mentioned above, is totally synthesized on voltage-controlled analog machinery. It assumes the stance of Valentine. It functions as avant-propos, paraphrase, setting for Valentine.

Valentine is one of the most difficult pieces ever written for the contrabass and demands that the player attack the instrument with bow, tympany stick, both hands alternating percussive tapping on the body of the instrument with pizzicato harmonics, while the voice sustains tones, sings counterpoints, and punctuates accents. All of this necessitates the player's assaulting the instrument with an almost de Sade-like concentration (hence the title). Valentine moves from intensity to euphoria. --Jacob Druckman

Art by Carl Andre

Sylvano Bussotti - RARA

pelodelperro 2015-10-19 | RARA (eco sierologico), for cello (1967)

Horst Hornung, cello

This piece, for cello, is one of those for five solo instruments, which together form "RARA (eco sierologico)" and which are superimposed on one another in a sixth combined rendering to conclude a special form of ritual performance. The subtitle "eco sierologico" (literally: serological echo) is reminiscent of the therapeutic procedure whereby medication is withdrawn to allow the organism to reestablish itself between two courses of treatment and the doctor to determine the effect. Here that corresponds to the interruptions to which the listener is subjected between the six performances and also, it would appear to us, to the relationships of duration and substance within and between the five pieces. The work thus forces the exponent into an attitude of dependence within a framework of independence, since each soloist must follow the other variation "in spirit" (first sequence) and must also perform his part simultaneously with the other solo parts (last sequence).

Like each of the other variations, the variation for cello is, in its original version, a microcosm of the ensemble. The various forms of pizzicato to which the first sequence is limited are to be found in it; the "leads, which are drawn out for as long as possible, the contrasts in tone-colour and the sweeping dynamics, which necessitate the extreme concentration of the exponent", which characterise the second sequence; "the greatest possible number of natural harmonies" of the short central phrase of the third sequence; the "static and timeless tonal form" of the fourth, etc.

The third sequence begins and ends with two passages which introduce non-musical actions, the first in the form of sighs or "audible" silence, the second by following the freer fantasies of graphic symbols and leaving room for extensive use of personal initiative on the part of the interpreter. In the version which he has chosen for this record, Horst Hornung, complying with the dynamic directions in the score, has realised an entire sequence of superimposed conversations, together with quotations from other works of Bussotti, and in particular sighs and silence from "La Passion selon Sade". The work thus attains a youthful freshness and spontaneity which reminds one of certain experiments in pop music.

In a concert performance, the four pages of the score are to be arranged on the stand in such a way that the audience can read the title of the work in large lettering on the reverse side of the score. RARA (eco sierologico) was composed from 1964-1967 and is dedicated to Francesco Galla. [Wergo 60048]

Art by Louise Bourgeois

Lejaren Hiller - Algorithms I, Version 4

pelodelperro 2015-10-17 | Algorithms I, Version 1 (1968)

I. The Decay of lnformation
II. Icosahedron
Ill. The Incorporation of Constraints

The first movement of Algorithms I is stochastic music in which the melodic lines become progressively more dependent upon previous pitch and rhythm choices. The second movement is a complete serial composition in which all row permutations are used once each; also, rhythmic choices are least organized at its beginning and end and most organized in its center. In the third movement, controls of vertical sonorities, of melodic motion, of resolutions of dissonant chords, of rhythmic patterns and of cadential structures are progressively introduced.

All the music, both instrumental and electronic, was composed on an IBM-7094 computer. In addition, the sounds in the two tape channels were produced by digital-to-analog conversion on the Illiac II computer. Additional details concerning this composition are published in an article in "Music by Computers", edited by H. von Foerster and J. W. Beauchamp, published by John Wiley and Sons. New York. [Also here: books.google.com.co/books?id=bqKfS3qQjMQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false]

Art by Edward Ruscha

Milton Babbitt - Three Compositions

pelodelperro 2015-10-17 | Three compositions, for piano (1948)

Robert Taub, piano

Three Compositions for Piano dating from 1947-48 are Babbitt's first works for this medium and are the composer's first mature
applications of Schoenbergian twelve-tone principles.

Art by Hedda Sterne