Lonh – Kaija Saariaho

Lonh is composed for soprano voice and electronics, a strange but very effective musical combination.

Throughout the work the soprano sings a text (Lonh) written in an old French language by a poet and composer named Jaufré Rudel. According to the performance notes, no one knows for sure how this language is pronounced, although Saariaho followed the pronunciation given to her by a specialist in French medieval literature. The poem itself is a tale about someone aching for a distant love (Lonh means ‘from afar’).

The best words to describe the soprano vocalist in the recording I listened to are chillingly beautiful. Through the process of setting Lonh to music, the emotional qualities already associated with the poem are now enhanced tenfold by this mesmerising vocal line. Saariaho has also chosen the articulation of the soprano very carefully; the voice is required in various passages to whisper, to sing with as much air as possible, to employ a speaking voice, even to move as slowly as possible from a breath tone to a normal tone. Dynamics in the soprano part are just as significant, with the addition of al niente, where the dynamics fade to nothing, and dal niente, where notes are brought out of silence and a crescendo rises seemingly from nowhere. The result of these carefully planned dynamics and articulations is contrast after contrast; notes with heavy vibrato and air will leap out at you, before a sudden drop to a half-spoken whisper is barely able to be heard. Combine these elements with a lot of rhythmic freedom and you have yourself an incredibly stunning vocal experience.

If the soprano part was not haunting enough, in come the electronics. These consist of nine quadraphonic sound files (quadraphonic was an early version of surround sound, where speakers were positioned at the four corners of a listening space, reproducing signals that were independent of one another). These sound files are set off and played throughout the piece, one after the other. Often a new sound file will begin before the previous one has concluded. The electronic sounds include things such as a mixture of wind and whispering voices, singing voices and pitched bells, rain, processed girls’ voices and filtered bird and forest sounds. Obviously each of these sound files would have been carefully created and altered to the composer’s desire. The overall effect created is one of a surreal, almost otherworldly atmosphere. Perhaps this is why I could not stop seeing images of space as I was listening to the piece.

Pitched and non-pitched percussion are also employed throughout, adding a mysterious metallic timbre to the work. Although on the score the percussion seem to play rhythmically in time, they do not effect the piece’s overall freedom.

Anyone eager to sample a breathtaking soprano performance should try this piece. Combined with the hypnotic electronics, Saariaho has created an amazing new way of interpreting the good old romance poem.

Please listen to my radio show,

Signing off,

Tully

Lonh – Saariaho Kaija

Lonh – Saariaho Kaija.

About the Composer:
She is an award-winning Finnish composer who lives in Paris.  Most “famous” for her works that mix electronic textures with traditional instruments voices.
Alive. Digs Messiaen (sp??).

About the Piece:
Takes it’s title from the Occitan word meaning far away.   It is a song using soprano and electronics.   The text comes from a 12th Century Provencal troubadour named Jaufre Rudel.  The piece was written/performed between 1996 and 1999.  Kaija re-uses the subject of Rudel in her opera “L’amour de loin” meaning love from far away.
There is a video showing extracts of a performance accompanied by projected AV stuff.

More About the Piece:
15 minutes long.  Soprano voice singing lyrically and romantically, utilizing tonal centres, hinting at medieval modality and occasionally breaking into speech, whispers, and noise.  The sound sources for the electronic textures come from processed audio. Non-tonal drones, recognizable environment sounds (birds, the beach, etc), unrecognizable textures and what sounds like samples of tuned percussion instruments.
Begins with a prologue in spoken English, sounding very sexy and romantic.  Ends with a minute and a half long fadeout.  The rest of the piece shifts between electronic sound sources in a drifty, atmospheric-drenched-in-reverb-manner.
The Soprano part seems to consist of several episodes each with their own exposition, build-up, climax and dissipation, informing the median structures of the piece. These episodes as a whole create the meta-structure, (though not nearly as clunkily as this reads).

What’s Weird About the Piece?
“Lonh” is VERY romantic in character.  It’s an epic song about love from far away, written in a dying romantic language (now that’s romantic) using the poetry of a favourite subject of romantic period artistry.  What happened to “Against Hedonism in Music”?  The re-emergence of romantic subjective themes is very indicative of late 20th century music (esp. in Europe) where (and this is a long but favourite bow) subjectivity and romance and modernity in art took a nosedive following the devastation of WW2.  (I really need a longer format to properly illustrate and defend this position.)

What did I learn?
The melodic writing in the soprano is quite beautiful.  Although it is using OLD text, and influenced by OLD modal and ornamental ideas, it sounds modern and fantastic.
The electronics in the piece also provided a lesson.  Though supplementary, it was constantly active, moving between textures, register, etc.  I learnt to DO THIS because it provides so much colour without being too distracting from the voice.

Kaija Saariaho – Pres (for cello and electronics)

Fatata te miti (by the sea) by Paul Gauguin

Pres, by Kaija Saariaho, is a work in three parts, partly inspired by the painting  ‘Fatata te miti’ by Paul Gauguin. The piece is a reflection of the “experience of the sea, waves, their different rhythms and sounds, stormy weather and calms. In other words: material, wave shapes, rhythmic figures, timbres, the charging up of the music and ultimate release of that charge” (taken from the liner notes of the CD ‘L’œuvre pour violoncelle [sound recording] = Complete cello works = Musikkia sellolle’ by Kaija Saariaho, CD3869 in the library).

All three movements of this piece feature extended techniques for the cello in combination with electronics. There is literally more sound produced by extended techniques than sound produced through traditional techniques. Electronics are used as accompaniment and as a means by which to extend particular musical gestures.

Points of interest:

• Use of a sample of waves crashing against a shore. When hearing this sound in a musical context, I was struck by how sonically rich it is. Not something I had noticed while hearing that sound in a non musical context (e.g. Movement 1, bars 137 – 157).
• Interesting use of reverb. When the input signal from the cello to the reverb is soft, the reverb has a long decay. As the input signal grows louder, the decay shortens. quiet gestures are enhanced while the presence of louder gestures is not interfered with (e.g. Movement 3, bars 155 – end).
• The use of electronics in combination with cello extended techniques to enhance the effect of a gesture.  Delay and harmoniser are added to the sound of the cellist playing a glissando between multiphonics, resulting in a much more aggressive sound (e.g. Movement 2, bar 100).
• Interesting sonic texture created through the movement from one technique to another. The cellist moves from Sul Tasto to Sul Ponticello (e.g. Movement 1, bars 1 – 5).
• Use of extended technique as instigator of musical motif. The cellist plays tremolo, gradually lowering its speed until it is a discernible rhythm between two notes, which then becomes the basis of the main motive of the movement (e.g. tremolo: Movement 2, bars 4 – 7. motif: Movement 2, bars 9 – 10).

From studying this piece I made the realisation that a motif can be constructed with any sound, not just ‘traditional’ notes (e.g. Movement 3, bars 1 -3). In my opinion, this piece is a good example of a natural use of electronics in combination with acoustic instruments.

Adrian