sounds only

Juni / Juli 2015

whatever shall be

music for toy instruments and electronics

Isabel Ettenauer: toy pianos, kalimba, music box & live-electronics

Karlheinz Essl: ring modulator

All compositions © Karlheinz Essl

Karlheinz Essl's compositions for toy instruments

A short introduction by Isabel Ettenauer

Kalimba

for toy piano and playback (2005)

is the first piece that Karlheinz Essl wrote for me. After experimenting with my Schoenhut Grand he had the brilliant idea of enriching its sound with an electronic soundtrack based on a recording of the same instrument. Placing a small loudspeaker inside the toy piano made it possible to create a perfect blend between the sounds of the instrument and the playback. The piece is entirely based on an eight-tone scale which alternates whole and half tone steps. Kalimba was premiered at the Komponistenforum Mittersill on 15 September 2005.

Sequitur XIV

for kalimba and live-electronics (2009)

In 2008, Karlheinz Essl started a series of compositions entitled Sequitur. Over a period of two years he created 14 works for various solo instruments and live electronics which were inspired by Luciano Berio's Sequenze cycle. As in Berio, each Sequitur composition explores the specific sound world of a single solo instrument. However, Essl goes even further and confronts each instrument with a very complex electronic accompaniment. The especially developed Sequitur Generator (written in Max/MSP) processes the live input of the solo instrument in real time and creates a complex 8-part canon – hence the title Sequitur, the Latin word for "it follows". Being confronted with their own playing in all sorts of mutations, the performers often feel though they were in a house of mirrors, Sequitur XIV was written for Jennifer Hymer and her Kalimba! Project.

WebernSpielWerk

for toy piano and ring modulator (2005/12)

is a "mini version" of the sound installation WebernUhrWerk, which was composed for the 60^th anniversary of Anton Webern's death – an algorithmic music for computer-controlled carillon. Karlheinz created an exactly notated score of the piece for toy piano for me. Both works were premiered on 15 September 2005 at the Komponistenforum Mittersill. On this CD I play the piece on a three-octave Michelsonne, accompanied by Karlheinz on the ring modulator. The composition has four movements: I. espressivo – "mit einem gewissen sprechenden Ausdruck" – II. Molto rubato – III. Gemessenen Schritts ("wie Totenglocken") – IV. sehr frei – "molto intenso".

Pandora's Revelation

for music box and live electronics (2009/13)

is the concert version of Pandora's Secret, a sound performance that Karlheinz wrote for my Circus Lebasi, a music circus for the festival Linz09, when Linz was the European capital of culture. Scored for punch-tape-controlled music box and live electronics, its ideas are based on Essl's improvisation environment non Sequitur, which uses a software similar to the Sequitur Generator.

Sequitur V

for toy piano and live-electronics (2008)

Being already familiar with the toy piano, Karlheinz fortunately included this very instrument in his wonderful Sequitur series. In some ways this piece is a logical continuation of compositional ideas he explored in Kalimba. By listening and reacting to the complex electronic accompaniment, the performer has much more creative freedom than in a piece with fixed media, and always experiences moments of surprise. Sequitur V makes use of a two-octave range, and I play it on a 25-key Schoenhut tabletop toy piano. I premiered the piece at the Alte Schmiede, Vienna, on 20 June 2008.

Listen Thing

palindromic Christmas canon for toy piano (2008)

In December 2008 I received a very nice Christmas gift from Karlheinz Essl. It was a piece he had just composed as a present for his toy piano friends. Originally it was written for music box. In this version, a custom-punched paper tape is inserted in its prime form (in the last movement), it turns out that the music we have been hearing all the time is in fact the famous Austrian Christmas carol Silent Night (in a special arrangement by the composer), played in four different directions. Karlheinz then had the wonderful idea of making a transcription of the piece for toy piano. Not only can the original music be heard in four different variations, but even the titles of all four movements are anagrams of Silent Night. 1. "Tingle Hints" (inversion) 2. "Shingle Tint" (retrograde) 3. "Lent in Sight" (retrogade inversion) 4. "Silent Night" (prime form)

Whatever shall be

for toy piano, dreidel, music box and live electronics (2010)

In 2010, my toy piano colleague Phyllis Chen from New York commissioned a composition from Karlheinz Essl, which in the meantime became one of my absolute favorites. In this piece, Essl uses the inside of the toy piano for the first time. As in Sequitur V, a contact microphone is attached to the instrument and connected to a custom-made computer program which acts as a kind of sonic "particle accelerator". During their voyage through the piece, the performer not only scratches and knocks on the sound board, but also has to stamp their feet (the source of the rhythm is later revealed) and make use of some special gadgets. A spinning top is played on the sound board, and a thimble produces beautiful glissandos on the metal rods of the toy piano. At certain moments notes are also played on the keys in a conventional manner, but even those sounds burst into explosive glissandos. At the very end, a small music box enters the scene. Mounted on the soundboard, this little instrument plays the melody of the well known song "Que Sera, Sera (Whataver Will be, Will be)", from the Hitchcock movie "The Man Who Knew Too Much". The magic of this piece probably also has to do with the fact that everything that is heard before the entry of this beautiful melody – all rhythmic cells, melodic motives, even the harmonic structures – are in fact derived from this very melody.

Tracks:

01 Kalimba

for toy piano and playback (2005) / 05:16

02 Sequitur XIV

for kalimba and live electronics (2009) / 11:50

03 WebernSpielWerk

for toy piano and ring modulator (2005/12) / 06:04

04 Pandora's Revelation

for music box and live electronics (2009/13) / 07:04

05 Sequitur V

for toy piano nad live electronics (2008) / 08:02

06 Listen Thing

palindromic christmas canon for toy piano (2008) / 03:00

07 whatever shall be

for toy piano, gadgets and live-electronics (2010) / 12:19

Eine Sendung von Julia Mihály.

Hier werden Produktionen aus Archiven der Elektroakustischen Musik, wie z.B. dem Archiv der DEGEM oder dem IDEAMA- und dem DEGEM-Archiv des ZKM, dem Archiv des elektronischen Studios der TU Berlin sowie anderen internationalen Archiven und Dokumentationen elektroakustischer Kunst unter verschiedenen Aspekten pr…sentiert.