Berichte/Features

Woche 49 - 02 / 3.12.07 - 13.01.08

Elektroakustische Musik aus Großbritannien zusammengestellt und moderiert von dem Musikwissenschaftler Dr. John Dack, Senior Research Fellow at the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Art at Middlesex University London

1. Denis Smalley: Pentes / 1974 / 12:51
2. Denis Smalley: Base Metals / 2000 / 13:42
3. Simon Emmerson: Piano Piece IV / 1985 /14:08
for piano and tape
4. Simon Emmerson: Five Spaces / 1998-99 / 17:07
for five stringed electric cello and live electronics

Auszug aus der Moderation von John Dack: "... I have made to initiate this series as the first two composers to be featured have played central roles in the development of electroacoustic music in Great Britain and, by extension, Europe. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is impossible to imagine how the medium could have evolved without their vital musical and indeed intellectual contributions. The first is Denis Smalley and the second is Simon Emmerson. I will introduce two works by each composer, one early and the other more recent. I will, of course, add short biographical details as well as programme notes in order to situate the works in their historical context..."


Zu den Werken:

Denis Smalley: Pentes
commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales

The title "Pentes" (both French and Latin, meaning slopes, inclines, ascents) was suggested by the outlines of the broad stretches of the piece, which evoke the spaciousness of landscape. Most of the music was created by transforming instrumental sounds, but there are also synthesized sounds. However, the only recognizable sound source is the Northumbrian Pipes, whose drone is responsible for the slowly evolving harmonies out of which its haunting traditional melody appears.

Denis Smalley: Base Metals
commissioned by Swedish Radio in Malmö

The title refers to the metal sounds that provided the central material for the piece, and it also evokes the creative process of transmuting these raw sources to a higher musical and expressive plane. All the metal sources derive from metal objects collected over a period of time. From the wide range of objects I selected those with the internal resonant properties that could provide me with variegated spectral families. Some possessed intervallic and tonal properties, others were inharmonic or noisier, and some sounded more synthetic than truly metallic. Although there are a number of orchestrated impacts and resonances in the piece, I was less interested in the clash of metal than in more sustained morphologies. Thus there is a focus varied pushes, surges, swirls and sweeps of spectral energy, balanced with calmer drifts, undulations and dips, all of which move in and out of more clearly pulsed moments. These motions are also spatial so there are approaches, emergences, dispersals and distant disappearances, sometimes leaving behind the residues of spectral trails. The metal-based families, which are hardly ever absent, are brought into relations with a few other sound-types, and those who know my other pieces might spot the occasional refugee-sound from the past, recontextualized.

Denis Smalley was born in New Zealand in 1946 and graduated from the universities of Canterbury in Christchurch and Victoria in Wellington. In 1971 he undertook further studies in France with Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire and he took the electroacoustic music course run by the Groupe des Recherches Musicales. He then moved to England where completed his doctorate in composition at the University of York in 1975. He then moved in 1976 to the University of East Anglia in Norwich where he eventually directed the electroacoustic music studio. In 1994 he was appointed to his present position of Professor of Music at City University in London. Denis Smalley has been awarded numerous prizes for his works. In addition to his composition he is in demand from universities in Europe and America as a teacher and his seminal writings on what I can best describe as electroacoustic theory illustrate his dedication to teaching. Texts such as ÔThe listening imagination: listening in the electroacoustic eraÕ from 1992 and ÔSpectromorphology: explaining sound shapesÕ from 1997 have become key texts in electroacoustic studies. As have his commentaries on the art of sound diffusion. Regrettably, few composers can explain their practice for the benefit of others. Denis Smalley, by contrast, has been invaluable to many young composers in helping them navigate their way round the vast repertory of sounds now available to them. (John Dack; 2007)


Simon Emmerson: Piano Piece IV (piano and tape)
Piano Piece IV continues a series of works which seeks to explore the relation of resonance - as found in real instruments - to the development of harmony and harmonic motion. A specific hexachord is transposed in turn onto the harmonic series of four fundamentals. The notes of the hexachord are held undamped (using a third pedal or tuning wedges) to allow continuous sympathetic resonance from an increasingly animated series of attack gestures, themselves based on the hexachord or its complement - a sort of 'overtone row'. The tape part has a dual function, 'freezing' certain resonances to act as a harmonic backdrop to the work, and to 'retune' some of the pitches of the hexachord to true harmonic series values. The work is an eight section 'cadence' on roots B flat, C, F, E flat, B flat. The work was commissioned by Philip Mead with funds made available by Northern Arts. It was composed between March and May 1985 and the tape realised in the Electroacoustic Music Studio at City University, London.

Simon Emmerson: Five Spaces (five stringed electric cello and live electronics)

Five Spaces was commissioned by Philip Sheppard with funds provided by the Arts Council of England. It was written for the five stringed electric cello built for him by Eric Jensen (Seattle).

Firstly there is the world of the instrument: five strings; each subtly different, each with its own space;
Then there is the world of sound drawn from the instrument, including pitch, noise and timbre spaces;
Then there is the stage and the amplification which we can project the instrument larger than life;
Then there is the world of electronics, most especially sound projection, to create for us unreal spaces within the one in which we listen (and perhaps suggesting some to be found outside it);
Finally there is the world of perception - your personal space.

Five Spaces was written between November 1998 and September 1999 and I would like to acknowledge Philip Sheppard's great assistance with many suggestions on performance practice and notation for this new instrument. It was first performed at the Huddersfield International Festival in November 1999.

Simon Emmerson, like Denis Smalley, is a tireless advocate of electroacoustic music. He is also in demand throughout the world as a teacher. Simon Emmerson edited the groundbreaking book: 'The Language of Electroacoustic Music' in which his chapter 'The Relation of Language to Materials' suggested the 'nine language types' used by so many teachers (myself included). His latest book 'Living Electronic Music' indicates his concern, indeed his passion, for the genre of 'live electronics'. That is when an acoustic instrument or group of instruments is modified by electronic processing (whether digital or analogue). The issue of what is really 'live' in 'performances' (itself another problematic term) of electroacoustic music is both aesthetic and even philosophical. No-one has contributed more to this debate than Simon Emmerson. He was born in Wolverhampton in Great Britain in 1950 and studied sciences and music education at the University of Cambridge. His postgraduate studies at City University in London led to his appointment there to direct the Electroacoustic Music Studio. After 28 years at City University he is now Professor of Music, Technology and Innovation at De Montfort University in Leicester. Simon Emmerson has been awarded many prizes for his compositions which continue to inspire musicians in Great Britain and beyond. Having been a founder member of EMAS (The Electroacoustic Music Association) since 1979 he then served on the Board of the Sonic Arts Network - the successor to EMAS - until 2004.
(John Dack, 2007)

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