| << |
pour ajouter à votre panier, cliquez le prix (le prix inclut
toujours la manutention et le port)
haut
Itinéraire en Europe du Nord
par François Couture in electrocd.com (Québec), 9 février 2004 |6137|
Voici une piste d’écoute sans prétention, une invitation au voyage; pas un tour
guidé, mais plutôt un itinéraire, un peu comme les récits de voyages de l’ère
romantique. Ce sera donc un itinéraire d’écoute, une invitation à découvrir une
sélection hautement subjective de compositeurs d’un coin du globe. Notre destination:
l’Europe du Nord.
La France règne en reine despotique sur la musique électroacoustique européenne.
L’influence persistante de l’œuvre de Pierre Schaeffer, plus de cinquante ans après
l’invention de ce qu’il a baptisé la musique concrète, et la force
d’attraction qu’exerce l’Ina-GRM ont tendance à occulter aux yeux du monde
le travail qui se fait ailleurs en Europe.
Alors partons d’une voisine de la France, la Belgique. Celle-ci doit en grande
partie sa vie électroacoustique à Annette Vande Gorne, animatrice infatigable du centre
Musiques & Recherches. Sa musique fait preuve d’une rare sérénité dans le domaine
des musiques pour bande. Tao,
un cycle sur les cinq éléments primitifs (l’air, la terre, le métal, le feu et
l’eau), demeure un classique du genre. La compositrice y épuise les transformations
possibles des sons associés à ces éléments avec une maîtrise et une poésie peu communes.
Élève de Vande
Gorne, Stephan Dunkelman partage sa grâce, une grâce qu’il transmute en
mouvement. Souvent issues de collaborations avec des chorégraphes, ses œuvres sont mues
par une force intérieure qui oppose à la charge philosophique (quasi mystique, en fait) de
Vande
Gorne la sensualité du geste. Ses pièces Rituellipses et Thru,
Above and Between, parues sur le disque Rhizomes, méritent une attention
particulière.
Une courte traversée de la Mer du Nord et nous voilà en Angleterre. Nous nous dirigeons
sur Birmingham, un important pôle créatif en musique électroacoustique, grâce au travail du
compositeur Jonty
Harrison et de son Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (ou BEAST), un espace
de diffusion et d’expérimentation qui nous a donné plusieurs compositeurs de talents.
Harrison
est un incontournable. Sa pièce Klang (parue sur Évidence matérielle) figure parmi les
œuvres électroacoustiques les plus connues des 25 dernières années. La clarté
architecturale de ses œuvres et sa façon distinctive de comprimer les sons en jets
d’énergie le placent au même niveau que les Henry, Dhomont et Parmegiani de ce monde. On retrouve sa manière de
faire chez l’un de ses élèves, Adrian Moore, en particulier dans son intérêt pour les
sources sonores simples (un marqueur sur un tableau blanc, une feuille de papier aluminium)
exploitées à travers des transformations complexes. Sieve, parue sur le disque
Traces, utilise un ludisme
accrocheur pour rendre ce processus transformatif transparent.
Denis
Smalley est d’origine néo-zélandaise, mais il réside au Royaume-Uni depuis
le milieu des années 70. Sa contribution au corpus acousmatique et au concept de diffusion
sonore en fait non seulement le contemporain mais en quelque sorte l’acolyte de
Harrison. Les deux compositeurs partagent d’ailleurs un même souci de
la forme, un même intérêt dans le déplacement dans l’espace-temps de corps sonores
abstraits. Wind Chimes (sur Impacts intérieurs) et Base Metals (sur Sources/Scènes) illustrent bien cette
beauté un peu froide mais fascinante. L’un de ses élèves, John Young (un
autre Néo-zélandais qui a étudié et enseigne maintenant en Angleterre), utilise une approche
similaire tout en remplaçant les sources sonores élémentaires (c’est-à-dire issues des
éléments et donc en quelque sorte philosophiques) par des images aux évocations plus
chargées. Les pièces de son premier album, La limite du bruit, présentent à l’auditeur plusieurs occasions de
replonger dans ses souvenirs au son d’une balançoire qui grince ou d’une porte
qui craque (comme autant de madeleines dans les tasses de thé de Proust).
Time, Motion and Memory constitue un morceau de choix.
L’électroacoustique scandinave demeure encore trop peu connue chez nous, mais le
catalogue d’empreintes DIGITALes nous permet d’y faire un court
arrêt pour compléter ce périple. Natasha Barrett a étudié avec Harrison et
Smalley
et a fait partie du BEAST, mais depuis 1998 elle habite la Norvège. Là, elle a su
s’écarter du style de ses maîtres à penser et se laisser imprégner du climat nordique.
Ses Three Fictions, parues sur Isostasie, méritent plusieurs écoutes. Enfin, terminons cette piste
d’écoute avec l’un des phares de la musique électroacoustique
d’aujourd’hui, le Suédois Åke Parmerud, dont la pièce Renaissance
(parue sur Jeu d’ombres)
redonne au synthétiseur analogique ses lettres de noblesse sans tomber dans la nostalgie.
haut
Review
par John Dack in Computer Music Journal #26:3
(ÉU), 1 septembre 2002 |885|
«The variety of tracks on each CD reflect the diversity of the composers’ languages
and the consistent quality of their output.»
There can be little doubt that the electroacoustic medium makes a major contribution to
the range of styles and genres of British contemporary music. British-based electroacoustic
composers enjoy considerable success in international competitions and regularly receive both
commissions as well as invitations to work in foreign studios. Unlike our European neighbors,
there are no major centers comparable to the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), Institut de
Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM),
the Institute of Sonology, or the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM). However, this
is not necessarily a disadvantage, as several excellent universities provide both the musical
and intellectual environments in which electroacoustic music can be studied at undergraduate
and postgraduate levels. It is particularly encouraging to note the many young composers who
choose to travel to Britain specifically for this purpose. Britain, therefore, has a rich
tradition (insofar as a new medium can have a “tradition”) of electroacoustic
music. Pioneers such as Tristram Cary, Daphne
Oram, Delia Derbyshire, or Maddalena Fagandini have often
been overshadowed by their more illustrious counterparts in France and Germany; their
activities are only now being given the serious attention they truly deserve. Despite this
level of activity there is little evidence of a “school” of British
electroacoustic music, and most composers can be situated without undue difficulty within the
various strands of European music. Consequently, while it would be simplistic to claim that
Denis Smalley, Jonty
Harrison, and Adrian Moore constitute a British
“school,” they do, nevertheless, accurately represent many of the preoccupations
of electroacoustic composers in this country. For example, all three are committed to the
public presentation of electroacoustic music — the composition of acousmatic music is
central to each composer’s output. Mr. Smalley has championed the practice
of diffusion as a vital aspect of electroacoustic music performance since 1976, thereby
re-introducing aspects of performance practice to acousmatic concerts. Similarly, as director
of BEAST (the Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), Mr. Harrison has been involved in the
development of a fiexible system for sound diffusion unrivalled in Britain. Mr. Moore is also actively involved in many
areas of performance with technology. Lastly, each is an academic which, although not a
prerequisite for electroacoustic composers, does emphasize the role played by higher
education in disseminating acousmatic music in Britain.
The compositions on Denis Smalley’s Sources/scènes span 26
years (a remarkable feat in itself). His work and aesthetic falls within a broadly
Schaefferian tradition and his own extensive writings deal with the materials, techniques,
and aesthetics of electroacoustic music. The Schaefferian framework has been extensively
elaborated and Mr. Smalley’s own concepts such as
“surrogacy” and “indicative fields and networks” now provide
composers, analysts, and musicologists with terminology inherently derived from the medium.
This has facilitated both an understanding not only of electroacoustic music but also of its
relationship to music in general. In other words: a true electroacoustic musicology.
Pierre Schaeffer wrote: “It
is the object which has something to say to us, if we know how to make it speak and to
assemble it according to the kinship of its families and the similarity of its
characteristics” (Chion/Reibel 1976,
57). I believe there are connections between French symbolism and many of Schaeffer’s theories; in Mr.
Smalley’s works the sounds (whether
recognizable or not) suggest correspondences as “things begin to talk amongst
themselves” (Ibid. , 47). The first track, Base
Metals (2000), exhibits the hallmarks of Mr. Smalley’s language. His
affection for attack-resonance sounds is evident (all the source sounds derive from
recordings of metal sculptures by Derek Shiel) as is his ability to
intervene in their resonances, to extend and develop them into objects of dynamic and
spectral interest. Individual nodal components are isolated and given momentum and the
energetic processes of sounds are delicately uncovered to reveal hidden textures and
transformations. Initially, I found Empty Vessels (1997) the greatest
challenge to my expectations. I first heard it during a concert at City University and the
real-world sounds recorded from within large earthenware pots in the composer’s North
London garden seemed a relatively unmediated documentation of an urban soundscape. However,
thanks to this recording, I have heard the work many times and now can begin to appreciate
the different acoustic environments through which the listener is taken. The subtle
characteristics of the natural sounds are placed in carefully created acoustic spaces thus
encouraging an interaction between the confined space of the vessels, the spaciousness of the
outside environment, and large but enclosed reverberant spaces. This “play” of
acoustic environments inhabited by intimate sounds produced by insects and rain, or smooth
and distant ones like airplanes, is possible, of course, only in the electroacoustic medium.
I hope to hear Empty Vessels again in the context of
a diffused performance where the space of the venue can also participate in these
relationships. It is difficult to remain oblivious to the manner in which space is
articulated by sound in the real world after having heard it used in this way. This is a
composition which transforms how we hear. For many enthusiasts of electroacoustic music,
neither Pentes (1974) nor Tides
(1984), the remaining tracks on the CD, need any introduction. Mr. Smalley’s control of fine detail and
his unerring ear for directing both spectral and dynamic movement ensure that each work
engages the listener. The behavior of water — both visual and aural — has long
fascinated composers. There is consistency and yet constant variation. According to the
composer’s liner notes, Tides was his first work in which source
material was transformed by computer. There are two sections, each with distinct
characteristics. The “pools” of Pools and Currents, for example,
suggest connected sonic areas with individual characteristics of textural play. The water
sounds acquire harmonic and gritty characteristicswhich are contrasted with
“currents” propelling the music forward in fiuctuating waves of movement and
rest. The final track, Pentes, is without doubt a classic of
acousmatic music. The source material is mainly transformed instrumental sounds. After some
minutes, the significance of the underlying drone becomes clear as a traditional melody,
played on beautiful, reedy Northumbrian Pipes, makes a brief and unforgettable
appearance.
The period of Jonty Harrison’s work is only
slightly shorter than Mr. Smalley’s, stretching over 17 years.
Mr. Harrison’s musical languages range
from one based on abstracting features from sound objects to the use of sounds whose origins
are often obvious and which inevitably imply cultural (and personal) meanings. As he remarks
in the liner notes, his work includes the approaches of (Pierre) Schaeffer
and (R Murray) Schafer. Klang
(1982), like Pentes, has justifiably acquired the status
of a classic acousmatic work. The discovery of the resonant properties of two earthenware
casserole dishes owned by Mr. Smalley is the point of departure for the
work (a detailed knowledge of a fellow composer’s kitchen-ware is one advantage of
living in a relatively small country!). As the composer writes, “Klang… is the German for
‘sound’.” In addition to the onomatopoeic characteristics of the word in
English it is worth adding that “Klang” in the original German usually implies
some harmonic content and musical intention. It was also one of the basic elements of the
Cologne studio and can be translated as “note” to differentiate it from the word
“Ton.” (Along with “Schall” and “Geraüsch,” German seems
to have a richer vocabulary in its number of words relating to “sound” than
English does.) However, harmonic qualities are not the only ones exploited by Mr. Harrison. There are also brittle,
fricative sound objects which possess their own energetic momentum. As a result, the resonant
characteristics of an apparently mundane utensil are promoted to elements of a musical
composition. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote
that poetry “strips the veil of familiarity from the world.” In a similar way,
Klang alerts us to the fragile beauty of
everyday sounds and their transformations. A common, and natural, progression for
electroacoustic composers is to provide sound for installations. Track 3, Sorties (1995), originates in such a work.
It contains abstract sounds as well as those heard in urban environments. Footsteps or the
sounds of modes of transport such as trains and traffic suggest movement from one place to
another but with little sense of arrival or repose. The action of travel is chronicled but we
are left as temporary visitors to these sonic landscapes. The occasional presence of more
abstract sounds, which are not developed for their own intrinsic properties, does little to
stabilize the sense of unease. We hear rain and storms, footsteps on loose gravel (hardly a
material for surreptitious arrival or departure), and despite a calming
“pastoral” interlude with buzzing insects, birds, and what sounds like children
playing, a feeling of gloomy restlessness prevails. Surface Tension (1996) exploits a
dry, fricative sound vocabulary. The sources are sounds from packing materials, and in such
unprepossessing physical objects Mr. Harrison once again encourages us to
listen so that his sound objects “reveal ‘beauty’ in what is normally
thrown away.” Often monophonic and sparsely textured, the fractured energies burst into
individual trajectories. The sounds seem to express the frantic behavior of capitalist
frenzy: buy a product, tear away the packing, and don’t consider where it came from or
where it goes. Like the constant deferral of arrival in Sorties, it is in the process of unpacking
and manipulating material that music is discovered. (This is, of course, a personal and
highly speculative, if not fanciful, interpretation!) The fourth track, Splintering (1997), also reveals an
equally carefully constructed series of transparent textures. However, the source materials
in this track are the more resonant sounds of wood. As Mr. Harrison
asserts, wood is “organic, ” and the sounds often retain that quality. The
composer also plays on the concept of the “wood” as the place deep in our
imagination where mysterious things can happen. Thus, he uses the sound metonymically to
represent and evoke a whole range of connections — mythical, social, and environmental
— with this one sonic symbol. The final work on this CD, Streams (1999), is a stereo version of a
composition originally in 8-channel format. Once again, the vocabulary extends beyond the
immediate musical contexts and natural processes of “evaporation, clouds and
rainfall.” Individual lines merge and divide and water becomes inseparable from its
spatial setting—enclosed and resonant, or open with spacious acoustic properties.
Adrian Moore’s works stem from
1994 to 1997. He is the youngest of the three and generously acknowledges his debt to the
preceding composers. His first encounter with electroacoustic music was at a concert given by
Mr. Smalley and as a postgraduate student he
studied with Mr. Harrison and also worked with
BEAST. Junky (1996), is described by the composer in
the liner notes as “electroacoustic ambient,” although I feel the description of
the work as “ambient” is somewhat disingenuous. The opening and closing sections
contain slowly evolving harmonies but the variety of interjecting sound objects ensure the
piece never descends into New Age navel-gazing. The second track, Dreamarena (1996), makes use of similar
sound material, but the rhythmic patterns of Junky
are replaced by a more amorphous structure punctuated by gestures which are either dry or
reverberant. The third composition is, for me, the most successful. Study
in Ink (1997) is a virtuosic demonstration of a sound whose potential is discovered by
accident but is then exploited by a carefully controlled series of gestures and
juxtapositions. This aesthetic is, of course, a recognizably French attitude toward
acousmatic music (in the early 1990s Mr. Moore spent time in Lyon, France). The
squeaking of a marker pen on a white board (the sole source for the composition) is extended
and magnified with arching melodic profiles to build a repository of sound objects. Short
sections of erratic movements trace complex trajectories through pitch-space. With track 4 we
move from the single sound source to multiple sources (though precise identification is
neither needed nor intended). Foil-Counterfoil (1997) employs
closely recorded tin foil, bottles, and balloons. As in the previous work these source sounds
are transformed into restless chains of objects, harmonic in content, grainy,
fractured—they ensure we are rarely left in repose as our ears constantly seek for
connections. The final work is Sieve (1994- 1995), the earliest on the CD.
Sieve (a “radiogenic” work,
according to the composer) uses electronically manipulated natural sounds. Mr. Moore
asserts that by removing certain sections of the sound precise identification can be
compromised. The listener begins actively to seek for recognition and occasionally realizes
that only when sufficient time is allowed can any accurate recognition be attempted. Even
then security is not assured and the sound object slips from our mental grasp and veers off
to assume a new identity.
These three discs are excellent examples of the current state of electroacoustic
composition in Great Britain and are welcome additions to the catalog of the
empreintes DIGITALes label. The variety of tracks on each CD reflect the
diversity of the composers’ languages and the consistent quality of their output. I
recommend them highly.
haut
Review
par Geert De Decker in Sztuka
Fabryka (Belgique), 14 janvier 2002 |471_7|
This CD contains 5 tracks with a variety of musical compositions. Track 1 called
Base Metals exist of waves of string and metal sounds. It is a creation of a
soft atmosphere where single sounds dominates in a mostly tranquil environment. Yet the music
is dominated by waves, it sometimes gets disrupted by strings and metal sounds which appears
at once into the soft atmosphere and which gets slowly part of the waves. Track 2
Empty Vessels is a creation of a natural real life atmosphere using recorded
outdoor sounds. You hear recording of birds, airplanes flying over, rain, bees… Slowly
Smalley adds some musical tunes into the
real life atmosphere which adds an extra dimension to the recordings. It sounds as the real
life is transforming into the lowest forms of sounds. This CD comes with a cardboard box with
a complete and full explenation how the music of each track is created. Therefore when we
heard water sounds in track 3 & 4, we were able to read that this track is made with the
sonic images of tides based on analogies between water and sound. Big words but how does it
sound. It is a mix of tickering sonic sounds randomly repeated and wondering through each
other. Some music is just to difficult to describe, also these two compositions. Track 3 is
based upon pools and currents and is named Pools and Currents. The bubbles
are created with the sonic sounds simulating an underwater reality. While track 4 is build
upon waves and is named Sea Flight, recording of waves rea used as basis
material and transformed into more electronical sounds that has lost almost its natural
sound. For both the computer is used for the transformation of source material into the
motions that is typical for these sounds. Pentes is track 5 and a very
surprising composition the best I might say. Yet, again a difficult one to review. The basis
material are transformed instrumental sounds, which again creates sonic sounds. The sounds
are able to appear at once in moments of complete silent ness while some further the music is
continuous with sounds waves. It is a creation of a landscape with several emotions ending in
one single long note and fading away for ever in complete silence.
haut
Review
par Henry Schneider in Vital #299 (Pays-Bas), 15 novembre 2001
|463|
Denis Smalley is an electroacoustic
composer from New Zealand who has spent a year in Olivier
Messiaen’s composition class at the Conservatoire de Paris and is currently the
Head of the Music Department at the City University of London. Denis has
received a number of international awards for his work over the past 25 years. The music on
this CD is a collection of four pieces from his long career. Base Metals,
Empty Vessels, and Tides are the realization of the idea
that a principal sound source can be the provider of the central material. In Base
Metals the source was metallic sound sculptures created by the artist Derek
Shiel. The result is an ambient sonic journey through the cosmos. The sound sources for
Empty Vessels are large garden pots from Crete and an olive jar from Turkey.
This piece incorporates many other elements (birds, airplanes thunder, and rain) and is akin
to Lustmords Where the Black Stars Hang. The sonic images of
Tides are based on the analogies between water and sound. In the first
movement Pools and Currents, digital scraping, bubbling, and squelching
sounds surge with the ebb and flow of the tides. The second movement, Sea
Flight, uses crashing waves of sound. The final piece, Pentes,
brings into play loud bursts of sound, chugging rhythms, slow crescendos of chords, and small
alien critters to achieve the sonic equivalent of slopes and inclines. All in all, an
interesting release that is fairly accessible for this genre.
haut
Review
par Paul Rudi in SAN
Diffusion (RU), 1 septembre 2001 |432|
«Sources/scènes, more than any other single disc, gives me a profound
sense of the depth and history which electroacoustic music has achieved.»
Three words come to mind when listening to Denis Smalley’s new
release Sources/scènes on the empreintes DIGITALes label:
elegance, depth, and style. A compilation of three decades of one of Europe’s leading
electroacoustic music composers, Sources/scènes is a treasure chest of sonic
emeralds, diamonds and gold. The four works on this CD bear similarity, not only to the
beauty and polish of well-crafted jewels, but also the depth of rare stones created over
time. And, as important, the works all bear the stamp of the composer. The lineage from
Pentes (1974) to Base Metals (2000) is clear, and each
piece, while maintaining a unique identity (largely because of the source material chosen),
bears stylistic unity to the whole of Smalley’s output. A style based on
clarity (of idea and material), transparency (of tools and processes), expansiveness (of
space and breadth), and careful tonality, places him among the elite of contemporary
electroacoustic music composers alive today.
Base Metals (2000), is an attractive play on the sounds of metal from the
sculptures of Derek Shiel. From the outset, whether
we know this sound source or not, the work has a distinct metallic quality which internally
unifies the sonic landscape and structure. The sonic quality of the work is linked externally
(to the rest of Smalley’s output), through
transformations including pitched glissandi, frequency shifting noise bands, ringing clangs
(reminiscent of Wind Chimes), and beautiful sustained pitches and chords: harmonies
emulating from the sources themselves, exploited rather than concealed. The opening chord
(based around B to my ear) with slowly evolving and shifting harmonies brought about by the
clang of a bell-like metal, Smalley contracts the following with the
listener: pay attention to the shifting spectra, and listen carefully to the subtle
commonalities which link one gesture to another. His play with space (foreground/background,
near/far, direct/indirect) is masterful, and gives the work a visual three
dimensionality.
Visual space is very near to the surface in the second work Empty Vessels
(1997), which incorporates environmental sounds (such as rain, fire, bees, flies, birds, and
thunder) into a largely tonal work with a primary source of garden pots and olive jars.
Whilst a full pitch analysis is beyond the scope of this review, a few relationships evident
to my ears should be pointed out. The work begins with a focus on D, and proceeds to
re-interpret (or re-contextualize) that pitch throughout. There is even a diatonic cadence
just past the middle of the work (8’21"). It ends with a D-A flat tritone spectral
transformation [cadence?] to B flat-D at the very end. None of this tonality, however, is
forced on the material, and that is Smalley’s strength, to draw
harmonies out of material, and connect them in completely natural ways, without superimposing
predetermined structures and risking the vitality of the sounds themselves.
One of the most interesting, and paradoxical environmental elements Smalley
chooses to use in Empty Vessels is a jet flying overhead (resulting, in his
words, incidentally while the microphones were in the pots). The jet provides a natural
filtered noise sound (through doppler), and is often used unprocessed, (which I speculate is
why the sound was chosen). The jet sound links many of the sections of the work together, and
provides a natural connection to the filtering effects of the garden pots, which he also
often exaggerates in the studio. The irony is that a jet, presumably a ‘full
vessel,’ provides the sonic link between worlds (the transport analogy equivalent to
the opening and closing doors often used in electroacoustic music not unnoticed here) in a
work about Empty Vessels. Perhaps this irony provides the tension that
drives the work from beginning to end. Much more could be said about the aesthetic, tonal and
philosophical aspects of the work here, but alas, must wait for a different forum. Suffice it
to say, that they bring me back to listen to the work over, and over again.
Tides (1984), an epic work in two movements, maintains a similar balance
between recognizable environmental sounds and synthesized transformations of unrecognizable
sounds. Movement 1 (Pools and Currents) makes use of water as a sound
source, and as an analog for motion and textures. In this work are wave-like gestures,
rain-like textures, and all of the motion that one associates with water [Currents].
Contrasting this motion are slow moving, even static, components [Pools] which, rather than
remaining separated, are shaped, disturbed, and shuffled by the motion of the currents (much
as water in tidal pools is). The analogy of water in both moving and still states allows
Smalley to incorporate highly contrasting sound worlds into an integrated
whole, especially when each sound world (recognizable and abstract) begin to take on
qualities of each other. The gurgling water for example begins to take on the sustained sheen
of the still sounds and vice-versa.
The wave-like gestures opening Sea Flight (Movement 2) give the illusion
of suspended waves, sweeping across the soundscape. A second element, sliding chords, emerges
out of the waves and immerses the listener in the sea. Both gestures fly in and out of each
other, setting up a dialogue between real and imagined space that moves the music forward.
This relationship can be interpreted as two distinct spaces (real and imagined), or
antecedent/consequent (statement/commentary), but in either case, these two
‘states’ or spaces beautifully capture the gestural energy and shape present in
the motion (or stillness) of the sea. Another gift of Smalley, is
to move in and out of recognizable and abstract textures without compromising the integrity
of the material, or arbitrarily superimposing pre-determined structures over the sounds.
The final work Pentes, is a masterpiece of the second half of the
20th century, and brilliantly caps off a must-have CD. This work, mandatory
listening for ALL of my students, denies any residue of cliché from the era in which (and
tools on which) it was composed. The distance of terrain covered in Pentes
is perhaps as far as one composer (or listener) can travel in a single work. Gestures burst
into silence, and begin to elongate (gently slope away?). Abstract sound gestures at the
beginning give little hint of the Northumbrian Pipes tune which emerges out of the F major
texture two thirds of the way through the work, and yet, the ‘enigma’ of these
pipes is completely forecast, natural, and indeed, destined. The short, scurrying, even harsh
gestures at the beginning, also little belie the sustained textural perfect 5th drone (on F)
out of which the pipes emerge. This moment, one of the greatest in the history of Western
music, re-defines the entire work for me as a listener. I cannot help but completely
re-evaluate the short, abrupt opening material when it returns after the pipes solo.
Smalley has transported us a great sonic
distance, and in the end, we see all of the material in a new light, unified by the high
frequency noise present in the reedy pipes themselves. The spectral clarity of the work on
this release is also far superior to the previous release (now on BMG), thanks to some
careful re-mastering.
In Smalley’s music, the elegance is on
the surface for everyone to hear, electroacoustic initiate or not. Depth is evident in the
consistent quality of all three decades represented, as well as the layers of sophistication
woven between immediacy and structural complexity. One need only listen to this CD in
comparison to other releases by the composer, to recognize the unique ‘Smalley’ sound, a sound which
vacillates freely between noise, tonal, ambient, environmental, synthesized, real and
imagined worlds, yet held together by the central idea of each individual work. His is a rare
talent, and Sources/scènes is a perfect showcase of these talents.
Sources/scènes, more than any other single disc, gives me a profound
sense of the depth and history which electroacoustic music has achieved. It also gives me the
sense that this ‘digital art’ has passed into an adulthood marked by maturity and
profundity. It says: electroacoustic music is an art form pregnant with possibilities, and an
ability to extend not only organized sound itself, but human perception and thought as
well.
haut
Pentes: A conversation with Denis Smalley
par Simon Emmerson in SAN
Diffusion (RU), 1 septembre 2001 |428_5|
It is 27 years since the completion of Denis Smalley’s
Pentes (“Slopes”) in 1974 1. The following is an
edited version of the transcription of a conversation between Simon
Emmerson and Denis Smalley, which took place on
the 29th January 1989 at the University of Keele.
History and origins
SE: Denis, tell us about what brought you to Europe and to the
GRM 2 in 1974. What were the formative listening experiences
which took you into the electroacoustic domain?
DS: I went to Canterbury University in New Zealand to do an ordinary
degree, and then on to Victoria University, Wellington to take an honours degree in
composition. When I left I needed to earn money and I went to Wellington College to teach
music; I started off as a school teacher but always thought at the back of my mind that I
didn’t want to stay in schools forever. In addition to that, every New Zealander at
that time, and I dare say now, wanted to go to what is called ‘overseas’ to gain
experiences that one can’t gain in New Zealand. So I always had my eye and ear on some
kind of study in another country, preferably in Europe and also preferably in France. One
tended to believe that everything would be much better everywhere else. I think that’s
a natural thought in New Zealand or any isolated country. So my eyes were set on going to
France; to that end I managed to get a French Government Scholarship to study with Messiaen. Several reasonably famous New
Zealanders had done so and found it a rewarding experience. I had played a lot of
Messiaen’s music, including many first performances of his music in New Zealand.
SE: You were a keyboard player?
DS: On organ, yes, including a lot of the more difficult music from the
1950s and 60s such as Ligeti’s Volumina. I would say that
my formative listening experiences were those gained through performing just as much as
listening. As far as listening is concerned I hadn’t heard anything very much of
European music beyond some of the serial music of the 1950s. It’s a question of what
was available on record out there in the 1960s. Probably the music of Webern was more
influential than anything else. Performing Messiaen meant getting scores from
Europe: you didn’t know what they were like until they arrived. As far as composing is
concerned I didn’t really do very much when I was school teaching; I composed some
educational pieces and I was always very frustrated that I couldn’t really have access
to top instrumentalists to work with instrumental material in a contemporary way. I certainly
couldn’t sit down and write the sort of pieces I wanted to without experimenting. I had
done some studio work while at university, but this was of an extremely elementary kind. I
did not have an extreme distaste for it, but disliked the circumstances of the particular
studio and the way things were taught or not taught.
SE: Was it concrète or electronic?
DS: Both, but when we say electronic: “Compose a piece with one
sine tone oscillator”. It may have been considered to be a useful exercise but it
certainly could hardly be musical. So I did something along concrète lines but it was pretty
terrible. The teaching method wasn’t thought out which is extremely important, so I was
rather put off. I left New Zealand on a scholarship though I wasn’t convinced I wanted
to compose - it was merely a mechanism for leaving the place. So I went to Messiaen’s class and by chance I
heard of the course at the GRM and that I had a right to enter it without sitting the exams
because I was a student of the Conservatoire. So I got in and decided very rapidly - I think
within a month or so - that working with sounds in the studio where I had direct feedback and
could experiment, was a far more fruitful way to compose than sitting in the Conservatoire
Library with manuscript in front of me, trying to compose a chamber piece.
The GRM: education and composition
SE: Was that course at the GRM structured in the way that you would now
think right and proper?
DS: Generally, yes, in that you had a very limited analogue studio to
work with; I think that it is quite important otherwise you get so swamped with machinery
that you can’t take stock as you have no aesthetic background; it is important that you
have some aesthetic commentary from your teachers. They tried to make you do very fixed
exercises - although this is not necessarily a good idea - and we would listen to the results
every week. It was group listening that was extremely helpful. The comments of Guy
Reibel 3, who was in charge of the course were extremely valuable but the
attitudes of other students were also useful. Sometimes you’ll get more from your
colleagues than you will from the teacher and I think that kind of set-up in the teaching
environment is important.
I can’t say that I got very far in that first year (1970/71). Looking back on it I
would expect my own students if they’d been working for a year to get further, so that
perhaps says something about the efficiency of the teaching. There were analytical classes
with Pierre Schaeffer, which to begin
with were largely incomprehensible because of French difficulties and because of Schaeffer’s use of
language 4. There were other kinds of pedagogical classes where musical
examples were discussed. Students always complained that the ‘mysteries’ were
being kept from them: the mysteries of how you make these wonderful works were not being made
obvious to them and this was a bone of contention. They wanted to know the secrets, but of
course there aren’t any secrets, The secrets are discovered through experiment, getting
to know through doing. There are no short cuts. You can’t be given a set of examples to
go away and emulate.
SE: No pastiche?
DS: No, absolutely no pastiche
SE: But if the études you were set were not pastiche, did they set global
aims and ends for each individual?
DS: No. An étude means specifying the sorts of techniques you would use.
That doesn’t necessarily pre-determine the musical outcome. It’s the same in my
own teaching now; you introduce certain techniques but you don’t necessarily say
anything about the kind of musical result that will come out. You get to feel that after a
while through questions of sound quality. For example, when somebody says the sound quality
isn’t good enough and attention is drawn to the way things move (and the majority of
the class agrees that it’s not right as a consensus), you quickly latch on to what
works and what doesn’t.
SE: What did they set you to do?
DS: You were introduced to techniques like looping and the different
kinds of splicing but in a vague kind of way. What you come up with might at first be rather
naïve and stupid until the whole range of activities of the group becomes apparent and you
begin to realise that there’s more to this than meets the eye and ear. Then you break
out and try more adventurous things. You would be sent off to do your prise de son with a
Nagra tape recorder which you would take around Paris recording sound sources - quite fun but
you didn’t know what the hell you were recording them for. I don’t send people to
record sound sources to begin with in my teaching. You don’t know what kind of sound
you need because you don’t know what you’re going to do with it. So I give
students pre-recorded sounds to start with.
SE: What happened between 1970 and 1974 when you came back to the GRM as
a composer rather than a student?
DS: I went to York University to start on a doctorate in music
composition; I was searching for a studio to work in, and I couldn’t stay in France
because my scholarship was for a year; I needed to go to a country where English was spoken
so I could earn some money, and that meant finding a British university.
SE: So in 1974 Francois Bayle 5
invited you back. How did that happen?
DS: I can’t remember the exact train of events but I think that it
was always envisaged that I would be invited back: I had completed the 2-year diploma in 1
year - even though I said I didn’t move very quickly, obviously from their
point-of-view I had! I don’t think I pestered them; the invitation just came.
SE: Let’s talk about the origins of Pentes
specifically. What were the first sounds that motivated the piece?
DS: Pentes comes directly from an earlier piece for
amplified clarinet and tape called Gradual 6. What I did was to
take the last movement of the tape part of Gradual, with one or two alterations,
as the beginning of Pentes. I only had 4 weeks at the GRM. If you have to
compose a piece from beginning to end you can’t start from nothing, and you can’t
necessarily start just from crude sound sources, particularly using analogue techniques which
would take a long time. So I had always envisaged when I was composing Gradual
that that would be the beginning of Pentes. It was my goal to go to the GRM
and start working on these sounds and to develop them in certain ways; I had certain fixed
ideas about these sources which were developed in a very complex way and were totally remote
from their origins. I was going to start by developing them at the same time as I was
investigating the analogue synthesis possibilities to see whether I could possibly be in
sufficient control of them. The Northumbrian pipes recording I took along with me because I
thought they’d be a fruitful source of development from nothing. So I had a range of
possible sources, perhaps as double insurance in case I didn’t like or couldn’t
cope with the things that came through the synthesis methods.
SE: How long did it take to compose the piece?
DS: Only 4 weeks at the GRM. It was the fastest I’d ever composed
and for that reason it was quite fraught. But I already had the first 2 minutes or so
composed. So I had a starting point.
SE: Was that 4 weeks for the production of materials and then you remixed
in York?
DS: No I did it all at the GRM.
SE: 4 weeks! Sorry, I’m taken aback!
DS: So am I! I couldn’t do a piece in 4 weeks now. I didn’t
know that I was going to manage it. I might say I was a bit worried.
Techniques and approaches to material
SE: Anyway, you have the material. If you can remember those 4 weeks in a
sudden leap back, what was a typical working day? What happened in those 4 weeks? You
arrived, 2 minutes are prepared, you have other materials and you have ideas, what sort of
ideas?
DS: I first started working on the drone materials as they were things I
knew I wanted to develop. But I hadn’t been introduced to the various devices the
studio had like a system of revolving heads which allows you to layer delays upon delays
which could, in a very convenient way, create a wonderful ‘space’. The space that
the pipes have when the melody comes in is due to that - it’s just a canonic effect. In
addition Bernard Durr 7
introduced the synthesis possibilities to me. They had quite a complex analogue sequencer
built on a patch-matrix system, which I must admit I never fully understood, but one could
still get interesting things out of it. These sequences were recorded quite quickly and I
realised that it would be easy enough because of the nature of the sounds to mix and
incorporate them in some of the drone-based material. In addition there was the material
taken from the end of Gradual. This was an immensely complex
‘explosion’ sound which was then superimposed on itself and stretched out into
noise textures. So there were all these activities going on, I suppose, simultaneously.
SE: Describe the evolution of structures; you appear to start with a
short term idea and then extend, working relatively organically.
DS: I work from a sound out into a section; I don’t necessarily
know how big the section is going to be when I work on it; it may be quite a small one, but I
don’t necessarily have a fixed idea about where that section will be in the finished
piece. Although in this case I had a beginning, when I’m working on other pieces I
haven’t necessarily known where a particular section was going to come. Having chosen
the right place, I would compose complementary sequences specifically for the end of the
structure.
SE: So you have what one might call a ‘local ear’ for what
you’re aiming to do.
DS: Yes, very much so.
SE: How do you go about setting out your ‘global ear’ for the
piece?
DS: Going back to the same point again, the problem is to find a context
for the sounds. When you develop sounds in the analogue studio it’s not as if you can
say “I’d really like this to be shorter” and compress it, or conversely to
stretch it out; you don’t have those possibilities. Even with computers, it’s not
always possible, so you have to find the right psychological spot for sounds and that
gradually determines the dimensions of the piece.
I suppose all my pieces follow narrative curves, although they are usually complex ones.
Pentes is probably the simplest narrative curve: you feel you have travelled
through material and are somewhere else. There are not really retrospective references and I
think if I hadn’t composed in a very direct way in Pentes I
wouldn’t have been able to finish the piece. In other words, in this case it was a
question of finding something logical to carry on from what had gone before, and continuing
with the process; there’s not a complex referential system as there is in my later tape
pieces.
SE: So in that respect, hearing your work Wind
Chimes 8 there are very strong references between the beginning and
the end.
DS: I wouldn’t say that Wind Chimes, is a very
complex referential piece. It is more a straight through piece in the manner of
Pentes,. Some of my other works, Tides 9,
for example, are much more complex from that point of view, but I suppose it has to be, being
a longer piece.
SE: So in that respect your global strategies bear a strong resemblance
to your local ones, they’re all really accretive and experimental.
DS: It is a chaining together of localities in the case of
Pentes. I think that is one reason why it remains ‘popular’ - it
is very easy to follow!
SE: It conjures up images, too. You tend to play that aspect down. Do
you, in fact, have strong images associated with your music?
DS: I don’t know whether I did then, but I do now in terms of
textures and objects. I don’t think I thought of Pentes in those
terms. Probably I did have images of landscapes in mind: the pipes on the hill overlooking
the coast or something like that, not just because of the melody but because of the space
involved and the durations of events: the stretching out of time and the evolution of
harmonies creates the ‘feel’ of the structure. I think I relate more to
psychological imagery then concrète visual imagery; it is the strength and ‘feel’
of the event when it comes, psychological ramifications of slowness, time and evolution and
these kinds of things. Of course, these do have visual connotations for people, or at least,
listeners have impressions of being in circumstances which are not those of sitting in a
musical structure.
SE: In other words, the feelings behind any possible imagery -
psychological state imagery rather than the results of direct sensory input.
DS: Yes. One student once said to me that a sound made him feel as if he
were drifting through clouds. If he had thought about it for a moment, he would have realised
that it wouldn’t be possible for him to drift through clouds, and it would be a most
unpleasant experience if he were able to. So, expressing it in that way is a statement of
psychological feeling about a situation which is fancifully thought about in visual terms; it
bears a very remote relationship to reality.
Perspective: the role of pitch and other strategies
SE: Since Pentes, many years have elapsed; you’ve
remarked that you’re developing perhaps more referential strategies in your music. Does
Pentes remain for you something ‘of the 1970s’? Is it linked to
its time? How is it in your history now.
DS: I wasn’t terribly conscious of spectro-morphological thinking
at the time; I didn’t have that theoretical basis 10. Technically
speaking, I had an excellent control of analogue techniques by that time - this was my 3rd or
4th piece which had used tape. That doesn’t mean to say I composed better pieces: it
was the ability to be on top of material and techniques which mattered very much. It was a
sense of achievement.
There are other things about the work; one is the melody - a traditional pipe melody
played by Andy Jackson, a student at York at
this time - which is an attractive prospect when it comes, even when you know the piece. I
took the piece around to François Bayle’s house the
day after it was finished and played it to him. He said “very good, very good” in
a non-committal way, “but the melody comes in too quickly”. I’ve always
thought about this - does it come in too quickly? I was worried about putting the melody in
because it was there in a way for a technical reason and not a musical one. That is,
it’s the ultimate consequence of taking a harmonic development which is based on the
drone of the pipes but which you don’t really hear as pipes. The pipe melody comes in
and tells you something about the previous sounds. But for me it worked psychologically at
the time; it seemed a good melody, rather stirring in its superimpositions. That was
important because the way in which I dealt with pitched material and notes in that piece was
a way to get back into them again.
SE: Back into them? Had you ever left pitched material?
Gradual is a piece with an instrument.
DS: Yes, but there is virtually no note-based material in
Gradual; there is not one single sustained note. It’s an electroaoustic
clarinet. I had definitely moved away from those kinds of things. In the cello
piece 11 and horn piece 12, although using mixed resources,
drones and so on, I was obviously more involved in the tape side of it; had I been composing
tape pieces I would have kept away from pitches. I was more concerned with objects and
textures but the presence of an instrument obviously pulled the pitch material back.
SE: So you’re saying that Pentes brought you back
to a balance between pitch and noise.
DS: It made me think that it’s the means of incorporating known
intervals and tonalities into the broadest palette of sounds.
SE: Give me examples in your later works where that has borne fruit
because I’m still a little bemused by the thought.
DS: In Wind Chimes, for example, a lot of the difficulty
in putting the sections together results from pitch problems, in tuning things together, in
getting into and out of stable pitch structures in order that you can attach importance to
the way the pitches are being shaped. I could play on the piano the skeleton - the pitch
structure - of the first two or three minutes. The point is that the piece is not actually
heard like that. People are conscious of it but not conscious of it. Because of the kinds of
activities and objects that are going on, the pitch structure remains a background prop. It
is important because there are actual chord progressions in a sense, but where they occur and
the way they are approached is rather unpredictable. They are an important part of the
piece.
SE: But are you conscious of these pitch progressions when you are
composing?
DS: Yes.
SE: Are you preconscious of them? Do you actually direct them or do they
merely evolve?
DS: They are part of the larger form and they are directed.
SE: You know them in advance? After knowing the material you create them
in advance?
DS: After knowing the material. A lot of the material might have a stable
pitch; the problem is not just using the material, it is how you use the pitch stability that
it is based on. Out of necessity this means making a decision about the kind of pitch that is
to come next even if that pitch is not in the forefront of the focus of the listener. If you
do it wrongly or if you choose one note as opposed to another then any resultant psychology
of the piece will be different.
SE: This is a surprising aspect of preconception in your work. You may
not hear the details but you have some idea of formal structure.
DS: This is quite important: the ideal aim of reduced
listening 13 is that you assess the sound object for itself in that you
examine it outside a context. But, of course, that is impossible; you are always thinking of
the real or possible context. So you are making a judgement about the sound, how it starts,
its time scale, whether it moves correctly; you have in your mind consciously or
unconsciously a whole repertory of ways it might be related to other sounds. In other words
you have a whole potential, muddled structure and set of relationships in your brain. So when
I say I’m working locally that can’t be true; it must be a lie. I am working
globally as well.
SE: But subconsciously or intuitively…
DS: Intuitively. You can’t have everything in the forefront of your
brain at the same time - you’re thinking, concentrating locally on the details but in
the background you have all the material lodged in vague sorts of ways, or the kinds of
material that you might want to work with.
SE: But these are hidden strategies. They are more the strategies of the
mind than of the conscious brain.
DS: Not necessarily, because I know I can bring them to the surface if I
want them, as required. I think this is the important thing about teaching students. They
can’t have that background to begin with. You’ve got to create the circumstances
where it grows - and grows quite quickly.
Technology
SE: You have only ever wanted to incorporate new technology when in fact
it has added to or allowed you greater freedom in what appears to be the continuing theme of
your work. How do you see the new technology available since 1974 as having expanded the
possibilities?
DS: A lot of people have always thought that when voltage control
synthesisers came along I clung on to concrète techniques. People think you’re making a
judgement about voltage control synthesisers. It’s that I realised I still had a
certain distance to go without confusing the issue with different technology; certain things
about them I wasn’t ready to work with, but when finally I had the Synthi
100 14 at my disposal, of course I used it. It’s the same with
everything that comes along. I was working with complex FM, and with signal processing
techniques at the GRM before others in Britain. It has a lot to do with opportunity and is
not necessarily linked to desire. Obviously I have wanted to use the most modern technology
and have done so sooner than most other people. I must say now that in terms of some
equipment I’m glad I’ve held off from my own studio’s point of view, trying
to avoid being saddled with the initial excitement of a product that comes on the market and
which turns out very quickly not to be good enough in terms of quality.
SE: But the refreshing thing about your approach is that it is in a sense
beyond technology. The technology should be translucent, not specifically detectable. In the
case of Pentes, my own experience suggests that 90% of an audience think of
it as an electronically generated piece and don’t actually perceive the concrète
material within it.
DS: You always have to compose for other composers - yourself being one
of them - quizzing yourself on just how much a particular technique surfaces at the expense
of the musical intent. You do have to think of the music you’re composing on that
professional level.
Education
SE: Supposing next year Pentes were chosen as a
GCSE 15 example work; supposing it were available to a much wider audience,
what would the lessons you hope the young, perhaps 13 or 14 year old, composers might be able
to learn? What might be the pitfalls and the gains of using the work in a much wider
context?
DS: The wider context of what I would see as important is not necessarily
for the composers; if you take GCSE as an example, were that to be done, it would be a signal
that the listening experience was valuable.
SE: Would you want a much wider appreciation of the general techniques of
electroacoustic music given the problems inherent in the MIDI generation of equipment? Could
we get something out of Pentes of very great relevance to our education
system in general across the board?
DS: Methods of working with materials.
SE: But that is not immediately apparent from the music.
DS: No, exactly; that’s why I concentrated on listening. The
approach to the making of the piece as far as the composer is concerned is how you develop
and relate sounds. There is no difference in essence between the way I developed sounds then
and the way I am working with computer systems now. I would say as far as young composers are
concerned, an important lesson is that procedures for developing sounds are not particularly
different.
SE: You think it is the act of getting there that is what we have to
learn, not necessarily the finished product?
DS: As far as composition is concerned, yes, because you can’t
deduce from listening to an electroacoustic work the means of production. It is possible to
deduce a means of getting there if you’re listening to a note-based or instrumental
piece: you can diagnose what is happening and what is playing to a large extent. You
can’t in listening to an electroacoustic piece diagnose the composing process. When
you’re starting to teach electroacoustic music composition, it doesn’t do any
good to set a lot of music to listen to because beginning composers can have no clues as to
how the pieces were made. It doesn’t inform them to begin with. First-year students
always ask me for pieces and I say I don’t want to give them any. I want them to learn
these things for themselves and, in a short space of time, they will arrive at something
which, while there might be echoes of it in the repertory, will have been arrived at without
knowing the repertory. That is unusual in a ‘method’, as it’s not one
you’d adopt in instrumental and vocal composition - you probably couldn’t,
because there’s a repertoire already known to the student. But a lot of students coming
into electroacoustic composition probably haven’t listened to anything electroacoustic
very much and even if they had, they wouldn’t know how it had been made so it
couldn’t influence them.
Postscript
SE: How would you like Pentes to be remembered in your
overall output?
DS: Not necessarily the best piece, but a good piece.
Notes
- Pentes was first performed on the 20th March 1975 in the Grand
Auditorium of Radio-France.
- The GRM was founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948
(though under a different name); it is currently a part of the Institut National de
l’Audiovisuel (INA) and is housed in the building of Radio France./li>
- Guy Reibel was director of the stages
at the GRM. See his work Les Musiques Electroacoustiques (INA/GRM Edisud,
1976)./li>
- See Schaeffer’s Traité des
Objets Musicaux (Seuil, 1966) for a detailed discussion./li>
- François Bayle was at the time
director of the GRM./li>
- Gradual (for amplified clarinet and tape) (1974)./li>
- Bernard Durr; composer member of the GRM./li>
- Wind Chimes (tape) (1987)./li>
- Tides (tape) (1984)./li>
- For a fuller discussion, see Smalley’s ‘Spectromorphology
and Structuring Processes’ in The Language of Electroacoustic Music (Ed S Emmerson)
(Macmillan, 1986)./li>
- Violonectomy (amplified cello, 2 synthesisers, tape) (1973)
(withdrawn)./li>
- Cornucopia (amplified horn and tape) (1973 rev 1978)./li>
- ‘Reduced listening’ is a term used by Schaeffer
and his followers to denote an apprehension of sound ‘for itself’ without
reference to an origin or cause, real or apparent./li>
- The Sythni 100 was the largest of the voltage controlled synthesiser range produced by
EMS Ltd in the 1970s (the smaller VCS3 and the Synthi A were also widely used)./li>
- The new GCSE school examination is set at the end of the fifth year of British
secondary education (ca 16 year olds). The music syllabus includes modules on
‘Composing, Listening and Performing’ and may include electroacoustic music (as
well as other types of music not previously encountered in the school curriculum).
haut
Musik & Kultur
par Zipo in Auf Abwegen #31
(Allemagne), 20 août 2001 |428_1|
Ein Quell der ungewöhnlichen Sounderlebnisse ist das kanadische Label empreintes
DIGITALes, welches fernab reißerischer Methoden in fast wissenschaftlicher Akribie
eine Serie mit elektroakustischer Musik von preisgekrönten Komponisten herausgibt. Alle vier
CDs stammen von relativ jungen, in der Grauzone zwischen freier Improvisation und
akademischer Komposition operierenden Künstlern. Die Klänge sind oft nach kompositorischen
Gesichtspunkten einander einverlebt, bleiben aber wild und jederzeit überraschend. So kann
man sich hier bedienen nach Herzenslust. Vielleicht etwas schnöde klingt
Traces von Adrian Moore. Hier hört man zu oft
die surrenden, schmachtenden Sauglaute eines Computers, der die reale Welt in sich aufnimmt
und „Musik” herausspuckt. Clonky, aber eben auf ernste Weise; können auch Matthew
Ostrowsti und andere. Grandios ist das Werk von Jonty Harrison, dem Leiter des
elektroakustischen Instituts in Birmingham. Seine Sammlung von Stükken (fast alle um die 15
Minuten lang) verbindet befremdliche Geräusche mit Klängen derAußenwelt, ohne letztere als
reine Projektionsfläche zu verwenden. Die Töne aus den verschiedenen Sphären interagieren und
treten in eine Kommunikation. Stark! Die klanglichen Extreme in diesem Viererpack stammen von
Denis Smalley. Er bricht mit den
Konventionen der Akademika, wonach Töne zwar schräg und abstrakt ausstaffiert sein dürfen,
aber bitteschön nicht stören sollen. Sein Werk scheut sich nicht vor häßlichen Momenten,
harschen Brüchen und fast industriellem Lärm. Dabei bleibt alles dunkel wie das
geheimnisvolle Cover der CD. Louis Dufort wirkt in seinen Stücken
wie jemand, der die Regeln des Genres kennt und sie mit genauem Gehör exekutieren will, um
hinter ihnen liegendes Potential zu erhellen. Die gelingt ihm am trefflichsten in der
Komposition Zenith, die mit pochenden Tönen arbeitet, die sich gegen
schrille aber auch flirrend-weichzeichnende Atmosphären behaupten müssen.
haut
Review
par François Couture in All-Music
Guide (ÉU), 1 août 2001 |403|
«… cold and mysterious.»
The cover artwork of Denis Smalley’s CD
Sources/Scènes is in blue monochrome. It describes the composer’s
acousmatic pieces very well: cold and mysterious. The works collected here span three decades
and their running order invites the listener to move backward in time. Base
Metals (2000) features sounds produced by artist Derek
Shiel’s sound sculptures, but these are rendered abstract through electronic
manipulation. The 1997 Empty Vessels was constructed with recordings made
from inside large garden pots. The air resonating in them and the environmental sounds
happening around them (birds, rain) are kept much intact by the composer. It creates a very
original atmosphere. The diptych Tides is based on water sounds. It dates
back to 1984, which means its detached dryness could be imputed to the digital technology
available at the time. The two dark movements feature many simultaneous layers of sound, but
while they succeed in creating suitable atmospheres, they don’t captivate the listener
the way they should. Strangely, the 1974 Pentes feels less outdated. Using
instrumental and synthesized sounds, it has a nice organic feel and features the drone of
Northumbrian Pipes for harmonic modulations. This piece provides the only lighthearted moment
on this otherwise sombre CD. In the end, Sources/Scènes is a mixed bag of
ingenuous and very ordinary works.
haut
Review
par Jukka Mattila in Prospective Music Magazine
(Finlande), 1 juillet 2001 |400_1|
«One for large spaces and loud volumes. 9/10»
Denis Smalley is an electroacoustic
composer from New-Zealand, on this album concentrating on sound source material, featuring
recordings based on metal and water sounds as well as sounds recorded in empty vessels.
Smalley succeds in transforming the raw
sound source material into very intriguing textures which often leave their abstract guise
and take upon a calm, even a soudscape and ambiant form. The works here originate from 1984,
1997 and 2000, yet coming together as an accomplished, whole creation. One for large spaces
and loud volumes. (9/10)
haut
Review
par Tom Schulte in Outsight (ÉU), 10 juin 2001 |397_003|
«… bare, stark, alien environments»
Smalley employs subtle, base sound types
in his compositions. Be it “metals,” “empty vessels” or
“tides” as on this CD, these become the primary textures for his minimalist
canvas. This monophonic minimalism creates bare, stark, alien environments where the listener
sends forth an ear as a curious and eager explorer always to return with newfound
discoveries. (4/5)
haut
Recension
par Petter Ottosson in Fat Bankroll (Suède),
31 mai 2001 |396|
Här har vi ett samlingsverk av en mångfalt prisbelönt elektroakustiker, född i Nya Zeeland
men bosatt i England och som grädde på moset också verksam som professor i musik och chef för
institutionen för musik vid London City University. Han är tydligen också fadern till
begreppet “Spektromorfologi,” som används för att beskriva ljudspektrats forms
förändring över tid. Japp.
Kan då verkligen en sådan här dunderteoretiker åstadkomma något som inte bara är
intressant på pappret? Faktiskt, men eftersom det är en “konstnär” som är i
farten så underlättas förståelsen för musiken av att man vet hur det var tänkt och hur det är
gjort. Och mycket riktigt så finns det en liten beskrivning av alla de processer och tankar
som lett fram till de olika styckena på skivan.
Skivan innehåller musik från olika epoker i Smalleys skapade, komponerade under
26 års tid. Den inleds med ett nytt stycke som heter Base Metals, som är
uppbyggt på resonansljud från metallkonstruktioner gjorda av konstnären Davis Shiel. Det är
helt OK och tidvis skapas typiskt otäcka, vibrerande ljud. Riktigt bra blir det inte förrän
under låt två, Empty Vessels från 1997, som är baserad på resonanser som
uppstått i en grupp krukor i Smalleys trädgård. Både trevligt och
läskigt och komplett med ljud från passerande humlor, fåglar och flygplan.
De två vattenbaserade delarna av Tides från 1984 passerar förbi relativt
obemärkt, de går delvis i stil med Base Metals, men bär tydligare spår av
datorbehandling. Det sista (och äldsta) musikstycket Pentes är konstruerat
av mestadels transformerade instrumentljud, en också ljud som är helt syntetiska. Smalley lägger till detta harmonier av
orgel/säckpipeljud från ett för mig okänt instrument som kallas “Northumbrian
Pipes” och detta gör Pentes till det mest musikaliska stycket på
skivan. Trots detta är skillnaderna i ljudbilden ganska små mellan de tidigare och senare
kompositionerna, oväntat små med tanke på att det ändå skiljer 26 år mellan skivans första
och sista låt.
haut
Kritik
par Wolfgang Fuchs in Skug #47 (Autriche), 9 mai 2001
|423_5|
Elektroakustik sagen die Einen, Ambient die Anderen. Schwammige Begriffe, die aber doch
das Spektrum des kanadischen Labels empreintes DIGITALes gut beschreiben.
Verzeiht uns die Schubladen.
Wenn ich die Gemeinsamkeiten, oder besser die Parallelen der mir vorliegenden
Veröffentlichungen auf empreintes DIGITALes beschreiben müsste, so könnte
das mit der Umschreibung »Walk In The Park« eventuell gelingen. Gemeint ist damit der Verweis
auf Brian Enos Parkbank-Aufnahmesessions, in denen dieser nicht unbekannte Vertreter der
sogenannten Ambientmusik - unter welchem Aspekt hier Ambient beleuchtet wird, sei der
Unvollständigkeit halber mal ausgelassen - Ausschnitte aus dem täglichen Treiben im Central
Park mit seinem Aufnahmegerät konservierte und einer nachträglichen Studie unterzog, in deren
Verlauf er jeder Klangprobe einen Wiedererkennungswert abringen konnte.
Bei Louis Dufort und Denis
Smalley werden Bahnhöfe, Industrieanlagen und Flugplatzeinflugschneisen in den Klangraum
aufgenommen bzw. dieser um jene Komponenten erweitert. Dieses konkrete Material wird aber
nicht nur in zitathaften Einsätzen einem musikalischen Prozess zugeführt, sondern aus seinem
ursprünglichen Rahmen herausgerissen, um mehr oder weniger manipuliert und veredelt in die
Chronologie der aufgezeichneten Geschehnisse rückgeführt zu werden. Daraus ergeben sich
abgeschlossene Klangreisen mit durchaus vertrauten Spannungsbögen - man stelle sich etwa eine
spätnächtliche U-Bahnfahrt vom Wiener Stephansplatz mit Linienwechsel nach Floridsdorf vor -,
die ein passives Hören (Klangtapete) sehr gut abblocken können.
Kompositorisch strenger und vielleicht auch arithmetischer gehen die Labelkollegen
Adrian Moore und Jonty Harrison mit ihrem
elektroakustischen Hantieren vor. Der 32-jährige Moore, ehemaliger Student bei Jonty Harrison an der Universität
von Birmingham, gliedert seine Werke auf »Traces« grob in drei Klassen:
»those verging towards the abstract«, »those focusing upon re-hearing natural sound-objects«
- »Study in Ink« ist das Ergebnis einer
musikalischen Studie eines Markerstiftes auf einer Tafel und die Auswirkungen des
Austrocknens dieses Stiftes auf dessen Klangverhalten - und »the radiogenic«. Letztgenannter
Kategorie weist Moore sein Stück »Sieve« zu, in dem er das eingesetzte Material
von Information, Sound und Bedeutung in Bezug auf den Verwendungszweck zu entkoppeln
versucht. »If one forces listening at the wrong moment, the clarity of the listening
experience changes and something ‘musical’ can sometimes be heard”. Auch
bei Jonty Harrisons »Évidence matérielle«
steht der Interpretationsfreiraum für den Hörer in einem interessanten Verhältnis zu den vom
Musiker intentierten Assoziationsketten. Manche Passagen klingen nach Herumirren auf Straßen
zur Rushhour, aus unterschiedlichen Positionen betrachtet. Hinter den Kulissen schöpft
Harrison jedoch aus einem umfangreichen Fundus an Tools, etwa aus Holz und Metall im
Spannungsfeld zu rein elektronischem Instrumentarium.
Dieses gekonnte Reduzieren auf die akustischen Ereignisse an sich und das damit
einhergehende Fördern und Fordern des Hörens macht das mittlerweile elf Jahre alte Label
empreintes DIGITALes zu einer wichtigen Plattform für zeitgenössische
Elektroakustik.
haut
Review
par Richard di Santo in Incursion Music Review #026 (Canada),
29 avril 2001 |6013|
«… recommended for the adventurous.»
In what is referred to collectively as the British Connection, empreintes
DIGITALes recently released these three discs featuring the works of three prominent
electroacoustic composers from the UK. […] Lastly, electroacoustic pioneer Denis Smalley’s Sources/scènes documents
five acousmatic compositions realised between 1974 and 2000, thus covering over 25 years of
electroacoustic research and composition. The first three pieces (Base
Metals, Empty Vessels and Tides)
are exercises in utilising single sound sources (metal, garden pots and water respectively).
The final piece, Pentes (meaning slopes, inclines, ascents),
is an early composition from 1974. It begins as a bustling synthetic landscape of bizarre
sounds, cut-ups and explosive clusters; and yet it suddenly shifts into a quiet movement,
where a drone gives way to a haunting melody on the Northumbrian pipes, and leaves everything
quiet and still. Smalley’s disc probably represents
the most dynamic of the three reviewed here; the sounds open up before your senses, become
tangible, and carry with them not only an incredible momentum but very strong moods as well.
Missing from many acousmatic compositions is the presence of mood, making suggestions and
appealing to the listener-spectator’s emotions as well as his senses or his academic
interests in sonic structures. Smalley writes in his liner notes that
“quite noticeable in all these works is the almost complete absence of a human presence
in the sonic fabric: the listener-spectator is left to observe and experience the scenes and
spaces, alone.” However, this statement by no means excludes the importance of the
listener’s response, rather it emphasises and elevates its importance. He further
writes: “between and beyond the loudspeakers, virtual, metaphorical worlds approach and
encroach in sonic flow, and are revealed for imaginative contemplation.” Sources/scènes comes
recommended for the adventurous.
haut
Review
par Ingvar Loco Nordin in Sonoloco Record Reviews (Suède),
15 avril 2001 |389|
«Magnificent!»
A new CD from Denis Smalley is in itself a real
event; such is his reputation! This CD is one third of the new grand slam from
empreintes DIGITALes: the British Connection - though
Smalley really does originate in New
Zealand… but he moved to the U.K. already in the 1970s. For a while there, though, I
thought the old Empire burlesque (!) had started to brew again… Well, Smalley
really initially came to Europe on the French Government Bursary in 1971 to study with
Olivier Messiaen in Paris, but
also achieved a diploma of electroacoustics at the renowned institution GRM; Groupe de recherches
musicales.
I’ve always held Smalley in the highest esteem, as one who
continuously keeps on putting out high quality, high-art electroacoustics. The piece that
really blew me away once upon a time was Wind Chimes (1987), released as
part of a CD (WER 2025-2) in Wergo’s series Computer Music Currents -
on CD 5 of that series (1990). I remember that I’d just set up the gear at home after a
major up-grade of equipment. Wind Chimes was the first CD that I played
through it - and I was stunned! They guy who helped me bring the gear home and set it up was
unfamiliar with any kind of electroacoustic music, and looked completely helpless when the
first loud chime cut through the room like a shining sword! So many intriguing sounds; so
much imagination, beauty, playfulness, downright auditive obsession! Later on Wind
Chimes was released on Smalley’s first CD on
empreintes DIGITALes; Impacts intérieurs (IMED 9209). On
that CD another piece, which Smalley first issued on Volume 6 of the
aforementioned Wergo series - Clarinet Threads - was also reissued.
So, this is his second CD on the label. I do not usually take much note of what the
composer or the label has to say about the different pieces, since electroacoustic music in
my view is to be compared with abstract art, I mean abstract, non-figurative painting —
which it can be intellectually amusing to discuss the ins and out of, but…
that’s that! It might be of interest to some to know what kind of software was used, or
which machines - but ultimately it’s the resulting sound that constitutes the end to
which the soft and hardware are the means. Only experts and conservators will want to find
out the exact chemical make-up of a painter’s paint. Contradicting myself - not
uncommon! - I nonetheless recommend the listener to read Smalley’s texts on his music, since
they are unusually well formulated, taking on a sort of musical, spatial guise
themselves.
The first piece on this CD is Base Metals (2000). The title alone tells
you what to expect; metallic sounds… but maybe this isn’t what you might think
anyway, from the title. The events are extended, swooping, like running your hand or your
mind along the curved surface of a parked Boeing 747, below and in front of the cockpit
windows, down along the bulging nose section, and the sun is shining on a cold spring day,
maybe up in Seattle. The metal is smooth, cool, almost sexy under the passage of your hand,
and you feel the molecular make-up of the metal, you can sense the atomic jitter, and as you
identify even further into the metal you feel, in bewilderment, the shooting trajectories of
elementary particles… until you brace yourself, shake your senses and return back up
through the worlds of matter, back to your good old self, with your hand almost perversely
stroking the jet… and you realize that that’s not where it’s at either,
because in real reality your just sitting there listening to Denis
Smalley’s Base Metals…
Empty Vessels (1997) is the second entry. In this case it definitely pays
off to read the composer’s introduction. Smalley has recorded the air resonating
through some large garden pots from Crete and an empty olive jar from Turkey. The recordings
took place in the composer’s garden in northern London, which explains why you can hear
the sound of rain and passing airplanes, for example. Naturally Smalley has
gone further with the resonating sounds, and developed certain aspects of them by the
manipulations that are easily accessible to a shaman of sonics! At first you hear the
thrushes of a wet garden, but it doesn’t take long for a mosquito and an airplane to
arrive and pass at the same instant… The thrushes keep it up, so I suppose the
recording was made no later than May. The next plane flies by above the roofs of London, but
the resonance it causes in the jars hang on and develop into a murmur of its own, sporting a
brilliance of overtones, when the rain starts coming down like miniscule explosions. The rain
on the jars produces a rewarding noise, with many beautiful layers of sound that seem to be
moving forward relentlessly, as the sound of the rain merges with the intense buzzing of a
swarm of bees which perhaps seeks protection from the rain inside the jar, right at the
microphone… It’s all seamless, streaming - streaming audio! When you feel too
sedated as the environment gears down into a lazy day of leisure with a hypnotic backdrop,
Smalley slaps you on the cheek with a
sudden impact, which again introduces rain, birds, planes and the vibrating resonance of a
rainy London day, when the smoke bends back to the ground and umbrellas make an aerial view
of the streets look like mushroom marches of fungi causes. Even thunderclaps echo inside the
jars in the garden. It’s a bit like a hidden-away feeling, as if you were curled up
inside a drain pipe outside the factory, eating away at your sandwich as the rain pours down;
a safe, cozy, secret feeling!
On it goes. Number 3 is Tides (1984), with the subtitles Pools
and Currents and Sea Flight. This was the first work in which
Denis Smalley utilized computer
transformations of source sounds. This quite much older piece brings us into a marine
environment, title-wise, but is it, in context, mostly as an idea, a theoretical construction
of relations between events…? Not really. Soon events occur that place you right at
the shore of a woodland lake, as the gentle ripple of miniature waves taps the sand and
pebbles, and you lie there by your canoe, resting, studying the light summer clouds. You feel
all that gravity, but at the same instant you feel your mind letting go, to hover in
suspended weightlessness and hypnotic introversion some distance out above the surface of the
water. Piece! Rest! Many inner sounds! Visions on the loose! Body let alone! Pearls of sound,
reflecting daylight thoughts. Bubbles of sound, emerging, popping. Much is going on here, of
an intricate character, on a mystical level, and the piece is long, adding up to no less than
30 minutes; almost French durations! We like it! Leave it out there for a good while and let
it brew. Then the fairytale quality is bound to seep up like methane through the marshes, as
so often in works by Jacques Lejeune or François Bayle - and the procedure
functions in Smalley’s piece! Nature becomes
enchanted here, and the elves and the fairies gather around a gray, bearded sage, sitting on
a moss laden rock in the meadow, as individual rays of light angle down through the greenish
mist, lighting up the wrinkled features of the old magician’s thousand-year-face.
Secrets are felt through the vibrating sonic transparence. The sea is never far away, and in
the second movement the waves roll back and forth through your head, if you’re
listening through earphones. Some chirping sounds call up visions of sea birds, while
bell-sounds (without the attack) make me think of some pieces by Jean-Claude Risset
(Sud in particular)
In the last, and oldest, piece - Pentes (1974) - you may hear
Northumbrian pipes. Smalley has transformed other instrumental
sounds here as well, though without providing any hints as to their origins. Short and noisy
events come charging in clusters, violently, and it is apparent that the music is older - but
by no means inferior to newer stuff - just… older. Maybe Smalley’s elec |