Concert Programme
Denis Smalley Pentes (1974)
Trevor Wishart Red Bird (1973-77)
Jonathan Harvey Mortuos plango, vivos voco (1980)
Jonty Harrison Klang (1982)
INTERVAL
Natasha Barrett Puzzle Wood (1994)
Pippa Murphy Caspian Retreat (2003)
Manuella Blackburn Switched On (2011)
Nikos Stavropoulos Karst Grotto (2019)
Denis Smalley Pentes (1974)
The French title (the same in Latin) – slopes, inclines, ascents – was suggested by the outlines of the broad stretches of the piece, which evoke spacious landscapes. Most of the music was created by transforming instrumental sounds. However, the only recognisable sound source is the Northumbrian pipes, whose drone is responsible for the slowly evolving harmonies out of which a haunting traditional melody appears. The piece was commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Paris, and was composed in their studios in 1974. The first performance took place in what is now called the Salle Olivier Messiaen, in the Maison de la Radio, Paris, on March 20th 1975.
Denis Smalley was born in New Zealand in 1946. He studied music at the University of Canterbury and the Victoria University of Wellington prior to spending a year at the Paris Conservatoire in Olivier Messiaen’s composition class. At the same time he completed a diploma in electroacoustic composition with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales/Paris Conservatoire. He moved to England, completing a doctorate in composition at the University of York. Until 1994 he was Senior Lecturer in Music and Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. He then moved to City, University of London, as Professor and Head of the Department of Music. He retired in 2009, and is now Professor Emeritus.
Denis Smalley’s works have been widely acclaimed, winning a number of international awards including the Prix Ars Electronica in 1988. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Huddersfield for his achievements in electroacoustic music.
Denis Smalley is a noted writer on electroacoustic music aesthetics. He developed the concept of “spectromorphology” (the shaping of spectral energies through time), which aims to explain the ways listeners interpret sonic relationships. The article, Spectromorphology: Explaining Sound-Shapes, published in English, French, German and Italian, is widely studied in education institutions throughout the world.
He has recently given masterclasses and concerts in Florence and Strasbourg, and immersive 3D audio renderings of his later 8-track works are being prepared for streaming on the free-access platform Sounding Future.
Full biography at https://electrocd.com/en/artiste/smalley_de
Trevor Wishart Red Bird – Part 1 (1973-77)
Red Bird was composed between 1973 and 1977 in an entirely analogue studio (University of York, UK), using only tape-splicing, mixing, speed changes and EQ available at the mixing desk. For many years I had wanted to develop a language and a technique of sound transformation (the seamless transformation of one recognisable sound into another). In the analogue studio, achieving such transformations was a difficult (and frequently insurmountable) problem.
The piece uses four classes of sounds, (1) Birds, (2) Animal and Body sounds, (3) Machines and (4) Words (particularly the phrases, Listen to Reason” and “Reasonable”) , chosen for both their sonic qualities and their potential symbolism. These are ‘orchestrated’ and transformed into one another to create a piece which is both music and mythic drama in sound, exploring notions of political freedom, industrialisation and our relation to the natural environment. The idea of creating such a myth-structure was suggested by reading Levi Strauss’ ‘The Raw and the Cooked’, which makes structural analyses of many existing myth stories, pointing to their abstract structural qualities, and drawing direct parallels with musical structure.
Tonight we will hear only the opening part of Red Bird which is a 40 minute work.
In my later work (Vox 5, Tongues of Fire etc) I pursued the detailed transformation of sounds made possible be the advent of computers, developing software instruments specifically for this purpose, thus realising more fully a vision of sound composition first explored in Red Bird.
TREVOR WISHART: (b 1946) Composer/performer from the North of England specialising in sound metamorphosis, and constructing the software to make it possible (Sound Loom / CDP). He has lived and worked as composer-in-residence in Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Mexico and the USA.
He creates music with his own voice, for professional groups, or in imaginary worlds conjured up in the studio. His recent work “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (2021) is a darkly comic take on the human situation using the voices of actors, singers and politicians.
He is also the principle developer of music processing software for the Composer’s Desktop Project. His aesthetic and technical ideas are described in the books On Sonic Art, Audible Design and Sound Composition.
In 2008 he was awarded the international Giga-Herz Grand prize for his life’s work, and in 2018 the British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) Award for Innovation.
For further information consult www.trevorwishart.co.uk.
Jonathan Harvey Mortuos plango, vivos voco (1980)
This work is a reflection of my experiences at Winchester Cathedral where my son Dominic was a chorister from 1975-1980. It is based on his voice and that of the great tenor bell. This enormous black bell of superhuman power has inscribed upon it: HORAS AVOLANTES NUMERO MORTUOS PLANO: VIVOS AD PRECES VOCO (I count the fleeing hours, I lament the dead: I call the living to prayers). This serves as the boy’s text. The pitch and time structure of my work is entirely based on the bell’s rich, irregular harmonic spectrum, a structure neither tonal nor dodecaphonic nor modal in any western or oriental sense, but unique to itself. The eight sections are each based on one of the principal eight lowest partials. Chords are constructed from the repertoire of 33 partials; modulations from one area of the spectrum to another are effected by glissandi. Constant transformations between the spectrum of a vocal vowel and that of the bell are made by internal manipulation of the two sounds’ components. The walls of the concert hall are conceived as the sides of the bell inside which is the audience, and around which (especially in the original 8-channel version) flies the free spirit of the boy. The work was commissioned for IRCAM by the Centre Georges Pompidou and first performed at the IRCAM day in the Lille Festival on 30 November 1980. It was made at IRCAM with the helpful assistance of Stanley Haynes in July-August 1980.
Born in Warwickshire in 1939, Jonathan Harvey was a chorister at St Michael’s College, Tenbury and later a major music scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge. He gained doctorates from the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge and (on the advice of Benjamin Britten) also studied privately with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller. He was a Harkness Fellow at Princeton (1969–70) and Professor of Music at Sussex University between 1977 and 1993, where he remained an Honorary Professor; between 1995 and 2000 he was Professor of Music at Stanford University (US). He was an Honorary Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge and was a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin in 2009.
An invitation from Boulez to work at IRCAM in the early 1980s set the composer on a path that has characterized his whole career, and which resulted in eight realisations at the Institute, and two for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, including the celebrated tape piece Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, Bhakti for ensemble and electronics, and the String Quartet No.4, with live electronics. Harvey also composed for most other genres: orchestra (including Tranquil Abiding, White as Jasmine and Madonna of Winter and Spring – the latter performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle in 2006), chamber (four string quartets, Soleil Noir/Chitra, and Death of Light, Light of Death, for instance) as well as works for solo instruments. He wrote many widely-performed unaccompanied works for choir – as well as the large-scale cantata for the BBC Proms Millennium, Mothers shall not Cry (2000). His church opera Passion and Resurrection (1981) was the subject of a BBC television film, and has received over twenty subsequent performances. His opera Inquest of Love, commissioned by ENO, was premiered under the baton of Mark Elder in 1993 and repeated at Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels in 1994. His third opera, Wagner Dream, commissioned by Nederlandse Oper and realized at IRCAM was premiered to great acclaim in 2007. A recording of this performance has since been released on the Cyprus Records label and has received critical praise. Wagner Dream has also been performed on the concert stage in London’s Barbican Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Martyn Brabbins. 2008 saw the premiere of Messages (for the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the Berlin Philharmoniker) and Speakings (co-commission with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, IRCAM and Radio France); Speakings was the culmination of his residency (2005-8) with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from which Body Mandala and …Towards a pure land also emerged. Two of these works featured on the Gramophone Award-winning NMC disc released in the same year, with Speakings released by Aeon in the following year.
Harvey’s works are now in constant demand from a host of international organisations, and his music is extensively played and toured by the major ensembles of our time (Musikfabrik, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, ASKO, and Ictus Ensemble, to name but a few). His music has been showcased at most centres and festivals for contemporary music. He held honorary doctorates from the universities of Southampton, Sussex, Bristol, Birmingham and Huddersfield, was a Member of Academia Europaea, and in 1993 was awarded the prestigious Britten Award for composition. In 2007 he was awarded the Giga-Hertz Prize for a lifetime’s work in electronic music. In 2009 he received several awards for his music, including the prestigious Prince Pierre of Monaco Prize in Musical Composition for Speakings, and the Charles Cros Grand Prix du Président for a lifetime’s work, becoming the first British composer ever to receive this coveted honour since its inception in 1970. In 2012 Messages won the RPS Award for Large Scale Composition and in the same year he received a lifetime achievement award from the Incorporated Society of Musicians.
In October 2011 his major large-scale commission Weltethos (for orchestra, choir and children’s chorus), with a text by Swiss theologian Hans Küng, was premiered in Berlin by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle. In June 2012 the same work opened the Cultural Olympiad festival in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall with the CBSO, and was performed by them at London’s Southbank Centre in October 2012. The BBC marked its appreciation of Harvey’s international standing in January 2012 with a weekend dedicated to his music at the Barbican; the ‘Total Immersion’ festival featured many of his major works, including the British concert premiere of Wagner Dream.
In the final year of his life, and despite suffering from serious illness, Harvey was able to complete three pieces, Cirrus Light for solo clarinet, The Annunciation for the choir of St John’s College Cambridge and, fittingly for someone whose life was filled with spirituality, another choral work, Plainsongs for Peace and Light.
Jonty Harrison Klang (1982)
As well as the immediate concern with ‘sound’, the title also reflects the onomatopoeic nature of the family of sounds providing the raw material for the piece – sharp, metallic attacks with interesting resonances rich in harmonics. The starting point was the discovery of two earthenware casserole dishes in Denis Smalley’s kitchen, from which two kinds of material were recorded in the Electroacoustic Music Studio of the University of East Anglia during the summer of 1981: attack/resonance sounds made by tapping the lids on or in the bowls, and continuous rolling sounds made by running the lids around the insides of the bowls. Different pitches resulted from the various combinations of lids and bowls, and different qualities of resonance emerged according to the attack position; very close microphone placement maximised the movement within the stereo image. Other related material was also used, both ‘concrete’ (such as cow-bells, metal rods and aluminium bars) and electronically generated (analogue and digital). The final impetus for the piece came when the composer was invited by János Décsenyi of Magyar Rádió to work in the Radio’s Electronic Music Studio in Budapest.
Although continuous, Klang falls into six short, fairly clearly defined sections: Introduction; Development 1 (duet); Development 2 (interruption of duet; increase in complexity towards first climax); Development 3 (relatively static section); Development 4 (proliferation of material from Development 3 into glissando structures; build-up to second (main) climax; slow release to:) Coda.
The listener can trace the development of the material from raw statements of casserole sounds (Introduction), through more complex, highly transformed events (Developments), and back to the opening sound-world (Coda). The most obvious transformation technique is mixing, using only slightly transposed versions of simple sounds; other techniques include filtering and, most importantly, montage. This is the principal means of controlling the timing and rhythmic articulation of the material and its organisation into phrases.
Klang was commissioned by MAFILM and composed in the Electroacoustic Music Studios of the University of Birmingham and the Electronic Music Studio of Magyar Rádió. It was awarded Second Prize in the Analogue Category of the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Awards in 1983 and in 1992 was awarded a Euphonie d’or at Bourges as one of the twenty most significant works from two decades of the Bourges Awards. It has been performed and broadcast in many parts of the world, including at the 1984 ISCM World Music Days in Toronto, Canada. It appeared on vinyl on the UEA record label and is available on CD on NMC (London) and on Evidence matérielle, Harrison’s second ‘solo’ CD on the empreintes DIGITALes label (Montreal).
Jonty Harrison (born 1952) studied at the University of York between 1970 and 1976, before moving to London, where he worked at the National Theatre and City University. In 1980 he joined the Music Department of the University of Birmingham, where he was Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studios and of BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), which he founded in 1982. He retired as Professor of Composition and Electroacoustic Music in 2014 and is now Emeritus Professor. He was Guest Professor of Computer Music at the Technische Universität, Berlin (2010) and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow (2014-15). He is Compositeur Associé with Maison des Arts Sonores/KLANG! Acousmonium, Montpellier, France.
He has been commissioned by leading organisations and performers (INA-GRM, Bourges, ICMA, MAFILM/Magyar Rádió, Arts Council England, Electroacoustic Wales/Bangor University, Maison des Arts Sonores/KLANG! Acousmonium, DEGEM, NOW! Festival, BBC) and won several prizes (Bourges, Ars Electronica, Musica Nova, Destellos, Thomas Selig Fixed Media Award/DEGEM, Lloyds Bank, PRS Prize). His music appears on four solo albums (empreintes DIGITALes, Montreal) and on several compilations (NMC, Mnémosyne Musique Média, CDCM/Centaur, Asphodel, Clarinet Classics, FMR, Edition RZ and EMF).
http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/harrison_jo/
Natasha Barrett Puzzle Wood (1994)
Puzzlewood is the name of a small forest nestled on the edge of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The landscape is shaped by strange rock formations and caves formed by natural underground erosion, exploited by Iron Age settlers, and later the Romans, for the extraction of iron ore. Nature reclaimed the landscape that is now covered by ancient trees and traversed by meandering and confusing paths. I first visited Puzzlewood at the age of four or five, when my family moved to the Forest of Dean. Fewer visitors than now frequented the area, and on my visit, the deserted Puzzlewood made a lasting impression. In recent years, the area has been used for movie sets, amongst others for the filming of Star Wars Episode 7 in 2015. I prefer to preserve my nostalgic memories of the place from the late 70’s.
An alluring aspect of acousmatic music is its ability to evoke a multi-faceted and paradoxical listing experience, where our imagination for ‘unheard’ sounds interacts with what we are actually hearing. As new connections are made, new allusions jostle for attention. Some tiny fragment of sound may shatter the existing context to reveal an even stronger ‘Trompe L’Oeil’, or sweep it aside in favour of some personal reminiscence. In this way, I would like listeners to lose themselves in the composition Puzzle Wood. Composed in 1994, Puzzle Wood is one of my earliest works. At this time, I was experimenting with how to combine many simultaneous sounds without them masking each other. The process involved some extreme frequency ‘carving’. Puzzle Wood was premiered in 1994, in the City University concert series, London (UK), and was awarded an honorary mention at the 17th Luigi Russolo International Competition (Varese, Italy, 1995).
In 2016 I remastered several of these early works which can be found on the Puzzle Wood CD here: https://www.natashabarrett.net/video-multimedia
Natasha Barrett (NO/UK) is a composer, new media artist and researcher. She creates acousmatic, electronic, and live-electroacoustic music, public-space sound installations and audiovisual works. She is widely recognised for her artistic exploration of 3D sound and ambisonics. Her work is commissioned and performed worldwide and has received awards in over 30 international competitions, including the most prestigious prize available for Nordic composers, the Nordic Council Music Prize.
In addition to her solo career, she regularly collaborates with performers, visual artists, architects, and scientists, often drawing on data emulating or created by real-world processes as a source for artistic exploration. Some of the highlights include 3D audiovisual artworks with the USA-based OpenEndedGroup, science-art sonification in collaboration with geoscientists, and live electronics collaborations with many soloists and ensembles.
She has held professorships and research positions in Norway and Denmark and now works freelance.
Pippa Murphy Caspian Retreat (2003)
Caspian Retreat explores the beauty and complexities of contemporary life in a land steeped in ancient art, culture and music; a land rich in colour, smell and sound. Using recordings I collected from the Caspian Sea and the city of Tehran, Iran, Caspian Retreat journeys into the mysticism of ancient and modern Persia…….. It was written at a time when Iran was announced by Bush to be one of three countries on the axis of evil.
Retreat v.1 a intr. (esp. of military forces) go back, retire; relinquish a position b tr. cause to retreat; move back. 2 intr. (esp. of features) recede. n. 1a the act or instance of retreating. b Mil. a signal for this. 2 withdrawal into privacy or security. 3 a place of shelter or seclusion. 4 a period of seclusion for prayer
Pippa Murphy is an award-winning composer and sound designer known for combining orchestras, singers and instrumentalists with ambient soundscapes, electronic music and creating bespoke sound palettes. Specialising in film, theatre, installations, live-electronics and multimedia collaboration, her work has been performed and received, throughout theworld, in art galleries, theatres, opera houses, concert halls and public spaces as well as on screen.
She has recorded sounds from around the world including China, Iran, Syria, Lebanon,
Sumatra, Vietnam, Cambodia, Botswana, India, Canada and the Scottish Isles and written music for BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, Scottish Opera, Celtic Connections, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh International Festival, Bergen International Book Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, St Magnus International Festival, Tate Modern, Aberdeen Art Gallery
Pippa was trained on piano, violin and percussion from an early age and completed herBMus, MA and PhD in composition at The University of Birmingham. She was Artist inResidence at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (2020), Scottish Parliament (2014) and ZKM (2003). She is a regular collaborator with Karine Polwart and their album Pocketof Wind Resistance was shortlisted for BBC Folk Album of the Year 2018, and ScottishAlbum of the Year 2018. In 2023 Pippa received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awardsfor Artists.
Manuella Blackburn Switched On (2011)
This piece began by exploring the sounds of switches, dials and buttons collected from my home and place of work. A particularly interesting sound was sourced from turning on an old TV, which ignited a series of high frequency pitches and crackling static flutters before eventually powering on. Lower transpositions of this sound revealed a usually inaudible collection of electronic-like frequencies that feature throughout the work. Together with this the switch sounds, being very short in duration, are clustered into intricate groupings, cascades and explosive flourishes. In addition to these aspects, I was particularly drawn to the concepts of inanimate object powering up from moments of inactivity, and surging electricity running and humming through circuitry.
Manuella Blackburn is an electroacoustic music composer who specializes in acousmatic music creation. Her music focused on intricate details and the clustering and careful arrangement of small sounds within clear, polished sound worlds. Her sound recording of everyday objects, environments and instruments make their way into new pieces through the transformation of the ordinary into the fantastical.
Manuella’s music has been performed at concerts, festivals, conferences and gallery exhibitions in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the USA.
Manuella is currently based at Keele University (England, UK) and is a Reader in Electronic Music and Sound Design.
Nikos Stavropoulos Karst Grotto (2019)
Karst Grotto is an acousmatic multichannel work which was composed during residencies at the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics in Crete and the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology in Zurich. The title, chosen for its onomatopoeic qualities and its direct references to landscape types, as well as geological spatial structures and processes, reflects the sound world of the work. Karst, a particular topography is created by the dissolution of soluble rock types from their contact with acidic rain water. A microlevel chemical process which characterises the morphology of entire landscapes and results in complex networks of small-scale, micro-space, features and textures like fissures and rillenkarrens.
The work is an artistic interpretation of the notion of aural micro- space and an attempt to work with the reality of such a notion by using specially developed hardware.
Nikos Stavropoulos (Athens, Greece, 1975) is a composer of predominantly acousmatic and mixed music. He read music at the University of Wales (Bangor, Wales, UK), where he studied composition with Andrew Lewis and completed a doctorate at the University of Sheffield (England, UK) under the supervision of Adrian Moore. His music is performed and broadcast regularly around the world and has been awarded internationally on several occasions. His practice is concerned with notions of tangibility and immersivity in acousmatic experiences and the articulation of acoustic space, in the pursuit of probable aural impossibilities. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Music, Sound & Performance Group at Leeds Beckett University (Leeds, England, UK), where he is a Professor in Composition and lectures on Electroacoustic Music. He is a founding member of the Echochroma New Music Research Group, a member of the British ElectroAcoustic Network (BEAN) and the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association (HELMCA).