Berlin — Montréal — Vancouver — Berlin

Opening of the Canadian Embassy
Edition RZ
RZ 290405
2005
CD
1 disc
Not in catalogue

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Radio // Berlin — Montréal — Vancouver — Berlin
Jalons
Un autre Printemps (2000), 6m09s [excerpt]
Track 6 from Jalons
CD: empreintes DIGITALes (2003) IMED 0365
  • piste@rz_290405-1
    • 1
      Un autre Printemps (2000), 6m09s
      • Commission: Uli Aumüller
      • Premiere: December 15, 2001, Rien à voir (10) — Réseaux, Espace GO (Montréal, Québec)

      To Uli A. and Antonio V.

      In composing this music for film, I had to follow rules that differ from those of non-incidental music: there were thematic directions that had to be respected, constraints that were imposed by the material (Vivaldi, the viola, a dog, the sound of a stream, and naturalism) and by the timing, allusions and references that had to be incorporated, and so on.

      Un autre Printemps does, of course, echo Vivaldi’s famous concerto, which forms the thread that runs through the film. But the thread wanders, changes, and is recycled, with the result that the baroque work becomes a simple yet rich sound source, and one full of cultural connotations. The important place accorded the movement of water and its mutations corresponds to the metaphor of the effusiveness of spring that is so present on the screen. But here the sound of nature questions the nature of sound: the representational and referential elements of the opening slide closer and closer toward abstraction, with the aid of the treatments that distort the source material, and the music regains its integrity. By the end, the sound will have rejoined the meaning.

      This approach to finding the beauty in sound as a means of organizing and structuring it reminds me of when I carved wood to earn my living, drawing my inspiration from form inherent in it. I tried in both cases to reconcile will and chance, conception and perception, and nature and artifice.

      [English translation: Tom Carter]

      Un autre Printemps (Another Spring) was commissioned by the German filmmaker Uli Aumüller for his film Mein Kino für die Ohren (My Cinema for the Ears), a co-production by ARTE and ZDF, and realized in the composer’s studio in 2000. Un autre Printemps was premiered during the European telecast of the film on 14 March 2001 and on 15 December 2001 as part of the Rien à voir (10) concert series presented by Réseaux in Montréal (Québec). Thanks to Jean René, viola, for some strong materiologies. The work won 2nd prize at at the Hungarian Radio’s EAR’01 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Budapest, Hungary, 2001). Mein Kino für die Ohren was recorded in March 2002 on DVD-Video by Bridge Records (Bridge 9117).

      piste@rz_290405-1.1 oeuvre@13918 ISRC CAD500316010

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    • 2
      Pacific Fanfare (1996), 2m57s

      Pacific Fanfare was composed to mark the 25th anniversary of both the Vancouver New Music Society and the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University. It is comprised of ten soundmarks recorded by the WSP in the Vancouver area either from the early 1970’s or more recently, and thus reflects the changing soundscape of the city. The various sound signals are heard both in their original state, and digitally resonated and time-stretched in order to let them “resonate” in our own memories.

      piste@rz_290405-1.2 oeuvre@13156

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    • 3
      The Book of Spaces (excerpt) (1998-2004), 15m49s
      8-track tape
      • Commission: Berlin Inventionen Festival, Sender Freies Berlin, Friedenskirche Jena with support from the Kulturfonds Foundation (Germany)

      The Book of Spaces is a collection of multi-track pieces in which the spatial representation of sounds plays a major role. The work is divided into eleven sections, each of which proposes a different type of “sound space.”

      The Book of Spaces was realized at the Electronic Studio of the Technische Universität (TU) in Berlin (Germany). Spatial movements in the work were composed with the Sigma I software, created by APB-Tools, Berlin. Thanks to Ludger Kisters for providing and playing the traditional Maori instruments — the purerehua and the porotiti — heard in the introduction and bridge sections of the composition as well as to sound engineer Harms Achtergarde for helping with the recording of these sounds.

      [iii-08]

      Parts of the work composed in 1998 were commissioned by the Berlin Inventionen Festival and Sender Freies Berlin for concerts celebrating 50 years of musique concrète — hence the homages to Pierre Schaeffer. Other parts of the work were commissioned by the Friedenskirche Jena, Germany with the support of the German Stiftung Kulturfonds.

      piste@rz_290405-1.3 oeuvre@23108

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