Pierre Boulez – Repons

My first (and somewhat belated) listening study for the year is Repons, by Pierre Boulez. I am unsure why I chose this, I think I thought to grab the two Boulez works and well, work on them. It is a good thing that I did choose this particular piece though, as it relates quite strongly to what I wish to do for one of my projects.

Repons is the first piece by Boulez to come from IRCAM (IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The extension of the building has been designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. [ Thanks Wikipedia! ])), an institute which he founded. It is an electroacoustic piece for chamber orchestra, six soloists and electronics. Boulez has seamlessly blended electronics and acoustic instruments together both spatially and materialistically, and it is this that I wish to examine in more detail, with some nods to other compositional techniques.

Boulez’s primary intention is to spacialise and ‘blend’ the acoustic and electric aspects of the composition.

Spacialisation diagram (from http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/music/boulez_repons.html)

We can see the projection of sound here, and a more detailed view of how the audience is placed in regard to the sound generators is below:

Placement of sound objects and audience in Repons, c/- http://lebbeuswoods.files.wordpress.com

As can be seen, the soloists (harp, piano, glock, etc) are placed through the audience surrounding the central orchestra, from these diagrams it is obvious that both the acoustic and electronic sound generators are spacialised, leading to the interesting observation that every single audience member will perceive the piece in drastically different ways depending where they’re situated relative to each sound source.

What is fascinating about this piece is the integration of electronics with acoustics, for example, there are moments when the piano will play a gesture which is ‘mimicked’ by the electronics and sent flying around the performance space. It’s as though the electronics are ‘attaching’ themselves to the soloist and then acting out their part based on the material presented by the acoustic performer. This level of orchestrated integration has the effect of creating a giant mass of sound, related in gesture. The composition seems to be through-composed in the sense that Boulez repeats a lot of gestures in various ways, and the electronic ‘augmentation’ follows similar ideas of repetition through imitation.

This brings me to another point about the general use of compositional techniques; the piece can be described as ‘modernist’ due to its fragmented yet cohesive presentation. You hear fragments of sound ideas presented all around you in the stereo space, and these ideas are gestural primarily, rather than ‘melodic’ or ‘harmonic’, similar perhaps to Varese, Takemitsu and even some of Frank Zappa’s orchestral works. Boulez has this to say about his use of metre and harmony:

Oh yes, there is a metre, slightly irregular on one level but very regular on another. There are so many irregular things in this piece that at one point you need to have a regular metre as you say – a bass and a regular pulse anyway – but also a series of harmonies which are all symmetrical. The harmony always gives this impression of something followed by its inverse; there is always a centre – an axis of symmetry. This symmetry of harmony corresponds in harmonic terms to a regular metre. This is very important. There are three types of time. That which is chaotic and irregular such as you have in the beginning (in the speed I mean). Then you have, in the speed, the very regular rapid repeated notes – always in semiquavers. Finally at the end there is a regularity, a kind of metre – but with much ornamentation. The ornamentation is in fact very irregular, but the metre itself is very regular.

(Thanks Wikipedia!)

This makes sense to not only the use of harmony, but also the spacialisation; everything is balanced and symmetrical throughout the performance. If something happens rear-left, there is a counterpoint front-right, and so on.

I’ve been listening to this piece over and over for about three weeks now trying to work on ways to integrate the ideas with my own compositions, particularly one electro-acoustic piece this semester (ongoing).

Vince

Beethoven: String Quartet 14, op 131

Firstly – Apologies to Tully for following him with the exact same piece.

For this post I’m looking into the shape and transformation of the melodic line(s) used in the 1st movement.

The piece opens with 1st violin presenting the beginning of a fugue. The scored part is:

A basic reduction of this results in the following shape which is made up of four segments, each consisting of 3 notes either rising or descending:

In bar 14 Beethoven changes this slightly by extending it from groups of three into groups of four, as can be seen in the 1st violin part below. He also extends the idea across all the parts and some play upwards whilst others play downwards.

Bar 21 shows another transformation of this figure with three notes ascending, then only two descending:

The key changes at bar 45, and in bar 46 -49 we can easily see the the idea spread out over the four parts:

This score study has demonstrated to me how the basis of a melodic figure or motiv does not need to be based on rhythm or specific pitches, but instead can simply be based on a contour or shape.

Warren.

Subotnick’s “Silver Apples of the Moon”

Howdy all,

This week, on Peter’s recommendation, I differed from the listening list and studied Morton Subotnick’s “Silver Apples of the Moon,” which was composed in 1967 (when synthesis was very new).

What I found particularly useful for me was Subotnick’s use of foreground and background in his presentation of material. This is not a technique which I am unfamiliar with, but I felt that I learnt a lot about how to apply it. Subotnick used differences in pitch and timbre to create his foreground and background, and it was his use of timbre that I found was of most use to me. His background pitches would be lower pitches that had few harmonics above the fundamental, and would be sustained indefinitely. His fourground pitches were of a middle register, and had plenty of upper harmonics. These were typically presented in quick succession, and with little sustain (rather like the sound of a pizzicato).  There were also pitches that would start in the background, and move in to the foreground. These were the highest of pitches, and were shifted in to the foreground by increases in upper harmonics.

However, what I like most about this piece is that Subotnick’s approach to composition in the use of foreground and background can be applied to other musical works besides electronic composition, making it very useful to study.

Timothy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EelvKqhu1M4

Beethoven – String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131

• First Movement – Adagio, ma non troppo e molto espressivo

In my blogging endeavours for this year, I am attempting to focus more on what I am learning when I listen to a piece of music. Last year I think I might have been a tad overwhelmed by the new music I was exposed to, and so spent most of my listening studies going ‘Oh my God! It’s amazing! You should totes have a listen!’

So, first up is Beethoven’s 14th String Quartet. I have never listened to it before; perhaps works such as these tend to become lost in amongst the massive symphonies and memorable piano music that Beethoven is renowned for. Or perhaps I should have listened to this years ago and I’m just lazy. Anyway, the first thing to know about this work is that it has 7 movements, quite unusual considering that at the time you only had to compose 3 or 4 movements and you could put your feet up. The other unusual aspect of this work is that the opening movement is rather slow, solemn and reflective. A more typical opening to a work for string quartet from this time would usually have been faster and more energetic.

The thing that appealed to me most about this first movement was the relatively simple rhythmical movement throughout. Apart from some brief modulatory sections containing quaver passages, the majority of the movement is made up of steady, even rhythmical phrases involving crotchets and minims (although there is more rhythmical variation in the second half of the movement). It is what Beethoven does with these simple rhythms, and how he organises the four instruments, which creates the intriguing nature of this movement. Often in my composing I will avoid simple rhythms, and instead attempt to write rhythmical phrases which can sometimes become unnecessarily convoluted. I have already discovered from listening to the first movement of this piece that the old adage of ‘less is more’ is so often true, and perhaps I could try adapting this motto to some of my own writing.

I am constantly amazed by the ability of great composers such as Beethoven to create musical blend, i.e. making a group of instruments sound almost as one whole. The first movement is a fugue, so this sort of texture, where instruments are constantly weaving in and out of each other, is to be expected. But such is the nature of this first movement, that I think I would struggle to focus on the one instrument if I did not have the score in front of me. Creating this blend is something I want to aspire to when I compose for smaller ensembles.

- Tully

Gosh, what an interesting piece. The first thing I noticed was how the first 15 seconds or so sounds exactly like the Dolby Digital introduction that they have at the cinema.

The second thing I noticed was, in some parts, how incredibly dense the sound was because of those glisses. Obviously this wasn’t a constant, there were times that the sound thinned out to just a triangle, or to some small subsection of the orchestra. I had honestly never heard such a dense, thick orchestration and it’s entirely due to these intense clusters that Xenakis develops throughout the orchestration.

The pieces isn’t 12 tone, it uses Xenakis’ unique mathematical mind to use things such as the fibonacci sequence to develop his scales and choose the notes in his melodies. At the same time, however, the piece could also be considered microtonal, due to the very long glisses that no one could possibly play in time with one another, and having different sections moving independently adds to this.

This piece demonstrates the use of mathematics to create a very musical piece and the use of huge blocks of sound to create an interesting structure

Saska

Test Post

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Petrushka: The Shrovetide Fair

Howdy all,

Well, after having our heads in the soundclouds and performing a detailed analysis of Mozart’s Rectum (or was that Requiem?), I returned to Russia and settled down with Petrushka. In fact, I went to the start and analysed the opening.

Like my previous study of Petrushka, I found in this excerpt that Stravinsky used the woodwinds to create a textural background of swift, alternating chords. This creates timbral unity as the previous excerpt depicted the very same fair during the evening.

What is particularly noticeable, however, is how Stravinsky generates melodic and contrapuntal content in this excerpt. We could compress the first melody down to two pitches: A and D, which is an interval of a perfect fourth. Stravinsky then creates an interesting melody based around these pitches, by having them alternate at various rhythmic figurations, throwing some passing notes between them, and then sustaining a single pitch whilst interspersing a mixture of the two former techniques. This creates a melody which is predictable – the audience knows that it is based around only two pitches, and begins to anticipate the movement of the melodic figure – yet simultaneously refreshing – you can’t predict will Stravinsky do between those two pitches.

In counterpoint, a second melody is introduced, which is essentially a transposition of the first. This melody appears to utilise the pitches B and E as the basis for construction, a tone above the previous melody.

These melodies intersperse, creating dissonance in the tonal difference between them. However, here Stravinsky does something else which is really interesting: his orchestration is different for the two melodies. The lilting flute timbre of the first melody is contrasted with the fuller violin sound attached to the second melody. This strong difference in sound somewhat lessons the dissonant effect created by combining the two.

In summary, we can say that this excerpt from Petrushka demonstrates that we can create melodies from the basis of two pitches, create countermelodies through transposition, and alleviate dissonance to an interesting effect with careful orchestration.

Timothy

the monash sonic art project on sound cloud

I’ve made a post to the new monash sonic art project group page on sound cloud. See:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/the-monash-sonic-art-project

To post your sonic art pieces you need to:

1. join sound cloud (its free): http://soundcloud.com/
2. join the monash sonic art project: http://soundcloud.com/groups/monashsonicartproject
3. up load your pieces as you create them to your account
4. share the uploaded piece to the group by clicking on the “share to group” button in the audio clip display.

Soundcloud test

Can anyone tell me if this is working for you?

PMc

Mozart: Requiem

It takes just the first twelve bars of the opening movement to get a strong concept of the writing Mozart is about to use in his Requiem. The strings begin with what can be crudely, but fairly accurately, as an Oom-Pah figure. This figure, and variations of it, appear throughout the work. In later movements Mozart alters the amount of notes the violins play in response to the strong ‘on the beat’ presented by basso.

The Bassoon enters in measure 1 with melodic materiel that prepares us for the entrance of the choral parts, seven bars later. In measure 2, the basset horn (An instrument similar in tone to an ‘A’ Clarinet) begins a fugue on the same melody. By the fourth measure both Bassoons and Basset Horns are involved in this fugal counterpoint. These are the only woodwind instruments Mozart makes use of in the Requiem, and I found it quite interesting to note that he uses only the lower and mellow woodwind instruments and ignores the generally common flute and oboe, perhaps he felt they were too bright in timbre for such a sombre composition.

Just before the choral parts begin, Mozart briefly airs the three trombones, two trumpets and timpani. I found it very interesting that on the score I used for this study, the trombone parts do not have their own staves, instead are placed wherever it is possible. At some points they appear on the choir staves, and in the trombone solo in the Tuba Mirum the part is scored on the Bassoon staff.More often than not the trombones were scored on the trumpet and timpani staves, which I found very odd as it reduced the occasions when those instruments would be used together.

I noticed a few common practises with his writing for the choir. Firstly, as was set out from the very start by the winds, writing in the style of a fugue was very common, and very effective in creating interest for the vocal lines. Mozart also makes use of repetition between the male and female voices, almost like a call and response. These two compositional tools ensure that on the occasions that he does write the voices as tutti chords, it really hits you.

The other thing from the vocal writing that I really noticed was that it was fairly rare for a vocal part not to be doubled by at least one of the instruments in the ensemble. This must make it much easier for the choir to sight read.

I found his writing for the choir of great interest as I’m currently workshopping a choral piece. I had gone to some effort to give clues prior to entries so the singers knew each new starting tone, but I hadn’t put any real thought into making use of the accompaniment to achieve this. Definitely something I will think about in future compositions.

Warren.