Photo: [ka'mi]
Dossier no. 20 . Portuguese Composers of the 20th and 21st Centuries . [ka'mi] (PT)
Part 1 . Roots and Education
How did music begin for you? Where do you identify your musical roots?
[ka'mi]: The fascination with music and sounds began very early, so early that I cannot really specify it. Yet I started studying music considerably later, already during adolescence, first when I received a mandolin left by my paternal great grandfather. Later, my dedication to this instrument made my parents offer me my first guitar. My granduncle Mário da Silva – a fascinating person and a talented guitarist – supervised, quite dedicatedly, my first steps on this instrument.
Which paths led you to composition?
[ka'mi]: Later I became an autodidact and, in this sense, it was always associated with a compositional side. I used to read books on musical theory, tonal and modal harmony, acoustics, counterpoint, etc.. From them I tried to extract knowledge and concepts, which I could introduce into my music and way of performing. My friend and percussionist Miguel Freitas was teaching me solfège while I was trying to attend masterclasses, like the ones at the Hot Clube in Loures, where I had the privilege to study with Vasco Agostinho. My autodidactic approach also led me to ceaselessly look for knowledge on the repertoire from such diverse areas as classical music, jazz, rock, the so-called “ethnic music”, etc.
My growing interest in music resulted in the decision to dedicate myself exclusively to this art, and so I began studying Musicology at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) of the Nova University of Lisbon. The scientific approach and the depth of historical knowledge gave me another maturity, whose influence I felt when later I went to study Composition at the Music School of Lisbon (ESML).
Which moments from your music education you find the most important?
[ka'mi]: For me it is a continuous process – education has no ending. There are quite a few and different moments. Not all of them have contributed for my career as a composer, and not all of them have been positive. Yet it does not preclude their importance. In retrospective, and without wanting to take the value away from other important situations (see my biographic note), I attribute more and more inestimable importance to the years when, as student at the FCSH, together with my friend and colleague Guilherme Proença I attended almost uninterruptedly the Music Seasons at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation – from the so-called “early music”, classicism, romanticism, etc., up to the annual Gulbenkian Encounters for Contemporary Music, still happening at that time. This effort was only possible thanks to the generosity of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation towards music students, and in this particular case musicology students, for which I have been extremely grateful. It was a regular acquaintanceship with music from different genres and musical periods, of highest quality and level of performance, in a space and time where the sounds exist and music happens… in situ.
Part 2 . Influences and Aesthetics
Which references from the past and the present can be found in your practice of music?
[ka'mi]: Some of these references are openly stated in the title of some pieces, as for example O Berio (2006), wyschnegradsky_revisited (2011), Funkin' A. Webern's Op. 21 Matrix (2015), Schub(h)ertziana (2008); or for example in the series of electroacoustic works Xenakis'sche Grauwacke I-V (2012-18). Other ones are indirectly implied, as in the case of Etude d'Ut: Absence d'une Mémoire Présent (2003), evoking Jorge Peixinho; Mehreres Stille (2003) and Schubert; Rastos de uma Resposta (2008) with the same instrument that poses The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives; or A.Sch_B: In memoriam Manuel João Fernandes (1920-2012) (2013), making use of Arnold Schönberg's name.
In brief, I could also mention here Grisey, Nono, Xenakis and any composer whose name starts with “B” –particularly Beethoven. From more recent times the references can be found in my biography and among them I can highlight Georg Friedrich Haas and Pierluigi Billone, as well as such names as Salvatore Sciarrino and Ole Henrik Moe.
In your opinion, what can a musical discourse express and/or mean?
[ka'mi]: In music, and particularly in my music, it is irrelevant if anything is liable of being expressed, if anything is understood as such and/or if anything is intended as such. The reception of a work is a complex and knotty phenomenon, which does not necessarily correspond to what is proposed, if that ever occurs… certainty in music is fallacy. And there, music proves to be a product of the abstract… which precisely for that reason, is able to express anything, even if it does not exist, or even the nothingness...
Are there any extra-musical sources, which in a significant way influence your music?
[ka'mi]: To find music in everything that surrounds me is not an option, it is not a choice or even an ambition. It is a way and form of being in life and in the world. Whether it is the product of human activity or nature, the absorption and the understanding of what surrounds me in a musical sense is spontaneous and subconscious. Therefore, it is difficult for me to understand the distinction of a category, which is being explained as “extra-musical”. Perhaps this way I include myself in a vision of music closer to Boethius...
Still the first object of my attention is mainly associated with sound events (which are also extra-musical) and with situations that might translate themselves into formal “narratives”. However, these extra-musical references are neither programmatic, nor do I intend to have them recognizable in my work. In reality, they operate mostly at a level where even I forget their sources, in other words – even I cannot recognize them.
In the context of western art music do you feel close to any aesthetics from the past and/or the present?
[ka'mi]: Just as in all other areas of my life, my intention is to learn from everyone and from everything. Perhaps sometimes I don't have this kind of openness, yet it is something that I strive to do. In my opinion a mistake is negative only when by means of it one does not learn anything.
I have always tried to get to know different aesthetic currents from the past and the present. I kept something from almost all of them, something that has fascinated me and that has opened me towards new perspectives. However, my experimental core still hasn't let me “marry” any of them – equally, this allows me to maintain an objective distance and freedom to establish my own sets of rules.
Are there influences in your music that come from non-western cultures?
[ka'mi]: Certainly yes, but not intentionally. Presently, the phenomena of cultural exchange occur at a mind blowing speed and they happen constantly, so the assimilation of influences from other cultures has become almost non-perceptible (and it poses the question, wether it is possible to distinguish the objective and concrete features between the cultures in contact – in the study field of the so-called “cultural transfer” one has debated and presented different ideas in that respect).
I don't believe that on any occasion I have deliberately resorted to concrete elements from non-western cultures, with one exception in the case of Sadako's Haiku (2014). It is a piece for solo guitar based on the poetic form of the Japanese haiku, but upon which I applied a system to allow the formal development and growth – and such a method in no way seeks to be reflected in the Japanese culture or in the tradition of this literary art.
How do you understand the term “avant-garde” and what in your opinion can nowadays be described with it?
[ka'mi]: “Avant-garde” is a bellicist term, and it immediately reveals in its origin a need for conflict and a predisposition towards confrontation. Even more, it reveals that an individual calling him or herself this way belongs to the front line; he or she is the main actor in the combat.
Some terms are important in a determined moment in history, within a specific context, either social, geographical, temporal, economical, etc.
Generally, and if their acknowledgement is dominating, those terms tend to crystallize into an “alternative” meaning to the one they had, to begin with. One version would be more authentic than the other one, not in itself or by itself, but also according to the contexts, in which it can be found or used.
The definition of the “avant-garde” taking us to intellectual and aesthetic movements, to people and groups searching for “new paths”, being in the front line of “modernity”, is a version coming from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In most cases, these positions were in fact made more and more extreme, pronouncedly claiming an unquestionable position. In the case of the so-called “contemporary music” this tendency lasted practically until the end of the 20th century, polarizing fractions and creating “schools” – all of them wanting to affirm their universality, although mostly following the principles of non-inclusivity.
In my opinion, since the mid 1980s this tendency has been transforming into an increasing plurality of perspectives and a greater individuality in terms of artistic offer. This aesthetic pulverization breaks up with the need to use terms such as “avant-garde”, clearly connoted with the monopoly of currents (note the image of force and/or the implication of links [in Portuguese the word “corrente” also means “chain”]), trying to polarize the artistic environment.
Part 3 . Language and Musical Practice
Describe your music language taking into account, on the one hand, the techniques/aesthetics developed in music creation in the 20th and 21st centuries, and on the other, your personal experience and your path since the beginning until now.
[ka'mi]: Since 2007 I have been exploring various forms of applying systems of pitch organization, different from the division of the octave into twelve equal parts. Parallelly to the matters of relations between pitches and the consequent results, whether vertical or horizontal, I am interested in what other pitch organizations can give us in terms of timbre and colour, and what is inaccessible in the conventional equally-tempered system. Within this realm I should also emphasize the important role of dynamics in my work: it is not only a question of volume or sound intensity, it is linked to our perception of the timbre, as well as to the perception of the pitch.
I thus often resort to the harmonic series, not in the sense to provide for a consonance, which has been sought by many composers since the communication of the results of Helmholtz’s research, nor as in the case of spectral music to reproduce the behaviour of a given spectrogram. The harmonic series works for me as a structuring element, which through its relations enables the transition between different systems of pitch organization – from something close to diatonicism, passing through whole tones, to chromaticism, then extended to quarter-tones, sixth-tones, eighth-tones, etc.
Structurally I apply the same type of proportions (and consequently of relations), which I obtain from this series, without having it interfere with the formal flow of the work. At this level I indulge my freedom of choice between what the material proposes, the musical gestures which it employs or deriving from it, the creativity and/or inspiration of the moment, or even a priori decisions.
The techniques to which I resort are always linked with one or more specific compositional problems. For this I seek to articulate the processes that would better respond to the problems, or which would better adapt themselves to my particular solution. Here are some examples of the variety of devices, which I use.
In Epígrafe, Epífrase e Epifonema (2003) I used symmetrical chords whose axis could alternate on one note or one interval. The development of the form and the sonic events were freely drawn on an A3 sheet, which then I projected on the score, proportionally and subordinated to a “low definition” grid.
In the piece for solo piano, Étude d’Ut: Absence d’une Mémoire Présent (2003), I employed chromatic processes into diverse musical parameters, exploring linearity as variation, submitted to a process of limitation – the rejection of the octave – interval, to which I reserved a special place in the piece’s final.
In Fragment (2004) I used an excerpt of the piece for guitar, Discrepantia (2002), which I explored thoroughly, resorting firstly to a fixed pitch-registration, then to multiplication of chords (the fragment transposed by itself), and finally proposing an intervallic succession of the fragment’s juxtaposition. This process gives origin to a pitch-net for the whole instrumental scope, which remains static, obtaining the resulting dynamism from the instrumental figuration and articulation.
In the case of Harmonias Simétricas | Simetrias Harmónicas (2005) for guitar quartet, I adapted the intervals, which at that time my friend and composer Hugo Ribeiro favoured so much – interval 1 and 7 (minor second and perfect fifth) – to explore the possibilities of a severely restrained environment. In the last section of the piece I adapted the same type of structures, not to concrete intervals, but to intervals between the cardinals of the harmonic series.
In Peça para Eça – Narrative for Orchestra (2007) I had as departure point my piece for flute, Enquanto Canto Encanto Quanto (2003). The challenge was to transform this essentially monodic music into a work for orchestra. Among other processes connected with the proliferation of material, there is a relatively extensive section in the woodwinds, which is based on the principles of counterpoint (measure 189 to 252), whose rules were specifically designed for this exact situation and particularly to the proposed material.
Since 2007 I have resorted to structures directly related with the harmonic series, and with the proportions of its relations also present at the level of temporal structure. Thus being, points on the temporal line in which an event should occur are determined a priori, without exactly predefining the quality of this event. It is a type of a relatively opened system, which gives me a first instance of organization as well as freedom of choice and greater plasticity in the compositional process. This technical procedure had its beginnings in Oito Minutos for orchestra (2007) and Jenseits des Klanges (2008) for instrumental ensemble, subsequently achieving a more organic level in Sonderart des Kreisens (2009-10) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano or wyschnegradsky_revisited (2011) for eight instrumentalists. Posteriorly this technique can also be found (although with some differences) in it never happened, so it just might happen again (2017) for recorder and percussion, Mirando eu Miranda (2017) for soprano, bass clarinet and violin, Manchmal ist es immer so (2018) for clarinet, violin and piano or Sonderart des Kreisens II (2018) for instrumental quintet and electronics.
In Sadako's Haiku (2014) for solo guitar I started with five typologies of the following elements: double natural harmonics; sympathetic resonance (with half tone movement); crossed strings; harmonics combined with glissandi; and triple “hammer-on” in the left hand. Each of these elements follows a temporal structure of its own (a kind of Talea). The subsequent combination of these elements makes that each one of them acquires a new/transformed context with every occurrence. Sometimes their confluence creates situations of elevated technical difficulty for the performer; other times the composer's choice implies which of the elements should prevail in a determined context (sometimes leading to the omission of one or another element).
In Manchmal ist es immer so (2018) one can equally find this Talea technique, different in every instrument, but projected on a “striated” temporal surface (as in Boulez's concept).
In Funkin' A Webern's Op. 21 Matrix (2015) for flute, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, drum set, piano, violin, cello and double bass, the challenge given by the Platypus Ensemble was to reflect on the relation between contemporary music and dance – it was presented with the name: Groove Abend. My idea was to take a journey to Webern's universe, mixing it with basic rhythmic patterns from funk music, reflected within a frame of 5/4 as time signature. The use of Webern's Op. 21 matrix received a special and unconventional treatment: in contrast to the use of the matrix lines and/or columns, the tones in Funkin' A Webern's Op. 21 Matrix come from a clockwise, spiral reading of the matrix. As the spiral gets closer to the centre, the characteristics of the series go missing – for this reason the first part of the piece is entitled Funkin' around. The second part of the piece repeats the same procedure, which on reaching the centre takes the opposite (retrograde) direction, whereby the second part received the subtitle In & Out.
Freed(om) of Choice (2017) for voice, flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano and conductor is an open form piece. The six instrumentalists have at their disposal three elements defined with various degrees of variation, at the level of different parameters. It is the conductor's responsibility to “create” the work “in real time”. For this effect – and similarly to a game – there is a set of rules, which limit the use of the elements by the conductor. The idea of the title implies, on the one hand, the freedom of choice, and on the other, the idea of being free of choice (that is, the absence of choice). The conductor has the role of defining who performs which element, but not the element's specificity. The performers' responsibility is to chose between the innumerable features of the elements, but not the choice of the element to be presented. The composer has selected the possibilities and defined the restrictions (including the element to begin, how to proceed when the work achieves X minutes and what is different from the Y minute). Yet he does not have any choice when it comes to the work's development.
Despite the diversity of the used devices, I feel that all of them reflect the self-proposed ideas and that in all of the cases it is in fact my music.
Do you have any musical style/genre of preference?
[ka'mi]: Without wanting to affirm it, but looking at my musical production, I think that one could conclude that there is an inclination towards instrumental music, with special focus on small instrumental sets, up to eight musicians.
Yet it would be naïve to presume that any composer can have such a degree of autonomy within the musical environment, so that what he produces actually directly translates into his or her own preferences. We have to take into consideration the requirements of the “market”, the different accumulated experiences, the proposed projects, the available resources, etc.
I admit my gradual interest in expressing myself more and more through electroacoustic music, but I also have to say that projects have appeared, which have nourished my interest to follow this direction.
When it comes to your creative practice, do you develop your music from an embryo-idea of after having worked out the global form? In other words, do you move from the micro towards the macro-form or is it the other way round? How is this process developed?
[ka'mi]: This is a process that, analogically to what could also be referred in terms of compositional techniques, differs according to the work and its context of creation. Trying to untangle the way this process develops, I believe that it is possible to identify three instances, which are essential for the outcome: there is a first one to which I always give special importance, the instrumentation – what arises from here are mostly creative stimuli and at the same time restrictions. A second instance, which may be absolutely determining in the development of the compositional process, is connected with the requirement of the work's duration – and it is also important to understand, from where this very requirement comes. The composer's choice? Is there a previous request provided? Independently of the case, the composer will answer in the formal sense, which will fit him or her better for the project. The third instance results from the composer's artistic proposal (intimately connected with the previous instances).
Ultimately, I have had a tendency to try to develop both the micro and macro-form simultaneously and independently. Blurring this hierarchy is not an objective in itself, but likewise it gives freedom to the decisions, which are made during composition.
How in your musical practice do you determine the relation between the reasoning and the “creative impulses” or the “inspiration”?
[ka'mi]: In the way I see music, it is difficult for me to understand these categories as separate things. I don't know if anybody would manage to determine or characterize this relation. Personally, it seems to me that a good idea is always associated with a creative impulse... or perhaps it is an inspired reasoning?
Perhaps the question is posed at the level of compositional predetrminism and the composer's availability to admit the ruptures to these rules? In the recent years I have made some experiments with open forms – particularly in the cases of A.Sch_B: In memoriam Manuel João Fernandes (1920-2012) (2013) or Freed(om) of Choice (2017) – which in spite of the elevated degree of predetermination at diverse levels, inhibit/give the composer other ways of managing a work.
What is your relation with new technologies and how do they influence your music?
[ka'mi]: It seems particularly interesting to me to partially recall here my answer to this question from the MIC.PT Questionnaire in 2013. What at that time I described and felt only intuitively has since then gained form and body:
"It is important to understand what «new technologies» mean. It is a nomenclature, which has already acquired its own space, however without making clear what it encompasses or what its limits are; its more complete designation presents itself as «new technologies of information and communication». On the one hand they are so prevalent that it would be difficult for an individual to be able to maintain his or her «exo-existence» against them. On the other hand they can be so specific that they exclude technologies, which are similar to them in the principles and used for the same purposes, yet different in means.
It is important to demystify the role of technology in the world today and especially its application to music: not always the most recent developments stand for progress; not always is the progress qualitative; and, what is even more important, in art any technological advance, even though qualitative, should not be an end on its own (...).
It is in the field of the so-called electroacoustic or acousmatic music where the «new technologies» have been having a greater impact and projection. My experience here essentially holds on to using samplers, sequencers and sound synthesis in what is understood as «electronics on tape». Electroacoustic tape music puts me in the privileged situation, where the roles between composer and performer become synchronic (...)”.
This answer was given about eight months before the premiere of Xenakis'sche Grauwacke I (2012) during the Música Viva Festival in Lisbon. What was still being initiated as a modest experience of an isolated piece, gave origin to an assumed aesthetic stance, and a series of pieces under the same title – the composition of the sixth Xenakis'sche Grauwacke is now in progress. This series of pieces, which have no relation between each other apart from the title and the subjacent aesthetic stance, belongs to what I started to denominate as eco-electroacoustic music. The attitude here is primarily “recycling.” All the used materials can be found in my own musical production. That is, the events that gave form to the indications in the score are now subject to scrutiny, with the aim to find new possibilities of expression. Even noises of the audience and other unwanted sounds are potentially new sonic objects to work with. I deliberately resort to technological means, both hardware and software, which are already outdated. It is a technologically-founded ironic reaction against the overload and hype of the use of technology on its own.
It is an impulse of rejection to go along with the “credo” that only the newest of the new technology is valid. This rejection is reflected in other aspects of my day-to-day life.
Does experimentalism play an important role in your music?
[ka'mi]: I think it does. At a personal level I believe it to be one of the main creative factors in what I do. To experiment for me means to search for something that I still have not experienced, and for this it does not need to be innovative. I believe that many times one confuses these categories... for me experimenting could even include something explicitly considered (by others) as conservative...
Which of your works are turning points in your path?
[ka'mi]: Modestly, I think that my path is still to short to make such a categorization. Making a parallel with science, it is an overly reduced universe in order for the sampling to be representative.
Part 4 . Portuguese Music
Please try to evaluate the situation of Portuguese contemporary music.
[ka'mi]: In the first place I would like to stress the fact that the last commission that I had to be premiered in Portugal on May 18, 2018, did not happen, given that the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble was obliged to suspend its activities due to lack of financing.
I admit to be perplexed and I feel somewhat outside the situation that is being lived in Portugal, in order to be able to speak about it. To eliminate any suspicions that my response to this question is conditioned by the referred event, I chose to transcribe my answer to this question made in 2013:
"Perhaps it would be more adequate do talk about music in Portugal and not Portuguese music.
In January 2008 on the occasion of the premiere performance of Peça para Eça (2007) in the framework of the Workshop for Young Composers of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, in conversation with Pedro Boléo from the Público journal I briefly traced the scenario of music in Portugal. At that time I mentioned what to me still seems important today: there is an enormous potential, especially at the level of human resources. The question, which I then put, remains equally present: can we sustain this potential?
Despite some institutional efforts it is still not possible to achieve what would be necessary. In most cases the major developments have been taking place with individual effort, initiatives and sacrifice. The financial issues are sufficiently fundamental in order not to be neglected in this analysis, but in my opinion the more interesting projects consisted of altruistic entrepreneurship, many times without any kind of budget, or at most extremely reduced. The new generations together with the involvement and good will of some «veterans» have been offering innovative initiatives and a musical quality quite far above from what the investment in the area has been.
Chamber music ensembles have been proliferating – being an evident factor of a transformation of the music environment in Portugal, as well as of a new mentality and stance of the musicians in their relationship to the social network. Only just around 10 years ago the situation was different. Then, the musical production was (still) roughly associated with institutions – at that time on a seminar at the ESML Christopher Bochmann identified this situation as unique in Europe.
Another sign of the transformation is the «boom» at the level of composition in Portugal – the establishment of the discipline at the level of higher education certainly also contributed to it. Eurico Carrapatoso identified this phenomenon as the «second renaissance», in a terminology, which can be seen as describing two different situations: on the one hand, a second golden age of composition in Portugal, just as it was during the Portuguese renaissance; on the other hand, literally as a rebirth of the musical art in a country where the exceptions confirmed its inexistence.
These developments, even though seemingly interesting and rich, are not sufficient. The musical life cannot live from outbursts. From a historical point of view, these phenomena have tendency to be ephemeral episodes. The urgent task would be to structure the potential at hand, with the purpose to guarantee continuity. And here we have a problem, not merely of conjuncture but also political, financial, social, cultural, educational and historical.
Musical education is of superlative importance in establishing a society that endeavours and interests itself in the sonic art, and I shall not enter the domain of financing or patronage, etc.
Another point concerns music critique or better, the absence of music critique. Together with the previously referred developments in the Portuguese musical life, we have been experiencing, paradoxically, the disappearance of music critique. I have received with great interest the news about some initiatives to invert the direction of this situation. If there is to be an actual «second renaissance» then the oblivion of the whole phenomenon within the diverse forms and spaces of social communication, will surely be strange for the future generations. The absence of music critique consequently means the absence of reception of musical production. It equally means, although not directly, the society’s lack of valuation of what is being proposed. In the final instance, its absence precludes the space for discussion, mitigating the existing potential”.
Reading through this description I realized that this answer is already five years old, and that it was made five years after my talk with Pedro Boléo from the Público journal. So this “talk” took place a decade ago!
It would be quite negative to have to admit that the situation has remained identical after 10 years. But it is not. 10 years have passed.
How do you define the composer's role nowadays?
[ka'mi]: In one word: irrelevant.
In two words: absolutely essential.
In various words: the scientist of the future.
In other words: socio-economically irrelevant; absolutely essential for musical art; the scientist of the future as professional market.
According to your experience, what are the differences between the musical environment in Portugal and in other parts of the world?
[ka'mi]: This question is posed immediately when somebody lives outside of Portugal. I could only refer to what I have personally experienced and what is rather circumscribed to the area of German language (Germany, Austria and part of Switzerland).
This was the question which, during the first three months of my stay in Austria, in Graz, came back to me rather frequently. After these initial months, the question disappears naturally... but without getting an answer – and this can be explained.
If one would speak of a particular project, in comparison with another project made in Portugal... for instance, comparing the Gulbenkian Encounters for Contemporary Music (unfortunately no longer organized) with the Wien Modern Festival (a reference and a case of success), it would be then possible to make an analysis of the target audience, of the attendance, of the involved means, of the event’s status, of the impact in the media, the programmes’ content, the programmatic line, etc. Eventually one could draw conclusions on a course of action, which might or might not emulate results, and/or identify characteristics specific for each situation, but whose line of action would also be in itself a possible object of analysis. From this, one could create a model, which could be better adapted to the idiosyncrasies of the music scene either in Portugal or in Austria.
When the question is given to us in a more general form, it looses its sense and does not encounter response (besides mere speculation), because we are talking about so distinct realities, as if they concerned two different universes. And different does not imply a valuation. One needs similarities in order to find the differences...
Part 5 . Present and Future
What are you present and future projects?
[ka'mi]: At this moment I have some simultaneous projects, as the recorder quartet Divina Styx, a duo for trumpet and timpani entitled Trumpet's fake news on deaf Timpani and another duo for transversal flutes still without title.
There is also a project for a quintet for the Ensemble Platypus, with which I have been working since June 2017 as co-organizer and the project of a trio for saxophone, piano and percussion for the Schallfeld Ensemble from Graz.
Could you highlight one of your more recent projects, present the context of its creation as well as the particular features of the its language and techniques?
[ka'mi]: wyschnegradsky_re-revisited (2018) was born from a commission by Lukas Haselböck from the organization cercle – konzertreihe für neue musik. The commission has been made for a particular concert where Alexander Eberhard (viola) and Igor Gross (vibraphone) perform together with Wolfgang Musil – responsible for the electronics.
Therefore the commission had previously defined particularities at the level of instrumentation (although the use of electronics was facultative) and duration of around 10 minutes. The Eberhard/Gross duo, which I got to know before, focuses on improvised and semi-improvised music, what was equally taken into consideration in the process of composition.
As the title indicates, the piece makes direct reference, to the composer Ivan Wyschnegradsky, whose pioneering work in the context of microtonality (together with Alois Hába since the 1920s) left us a very important musical legacy, as well as the bases of a musical thought focused on organizing and representing the “sonic continuum”. Both Wyschnegradsky and Hába wanted to develop theories of musical pitches organization that would not only structure the microtonal proposals, but also that could include other universes, as the ones of the equally-tempered 12 tones. In this way Wyschnegradsky resorted to cycles of intervals, which by their nature would permit the omission of octaves, thus avoiding the repetition of pitches. From these cycles the composer distinguished diverse forms of perfect and imperfect cycles, being that the perfect are related with the cycles of unique intervals and the imperfect with the cycles of two intervals that follow ad infinitum.
The piece clearly presents moments constructed upon the “imperfect cycles” conceived by Wyschnegradsky, where the intervals of perfect fifth and tritone follow unceasingly (creating in sum the interval of minor ninth), or in their “complementary” variation with the intervals of perfect fourth and tritone (making the interval of major seventh).
The universe of the twelve equally tempered sound scale, majorly given to the vibraphone due to its organologic features, is many times interrupted, added, assisted, disturbed, etc. by the microtonal possibilities in the viola. This confrontation/development between these two universes is the actual motor of the piece's prosecution.
In many moments the measure becomes unmeasured and the relations between the sounds are the fabric upon which the performer can construct the direction of his or her performance. It is a resource, which indeed pleases me, as generally the performer gets much more involved with the whole and more directly with the other musicians. It implies an active listening on another level and simultaneously allows for a much more organic plasticity of the musical flux.
The electronics in this piece has quite rudimentary lines on purpose. The meager necessary technological resources are also reflected in the choice of the materials, resumed to three elements: white noise (filtered in real time with a three-band equalizer); glissandi of sinusoidal sounds and a sample of a vibraphone cluster in retrograded version (for a specific section repeated ad libitum). The formal function of the electronics is decisive for the piece's development.
(these lines were written before the piece's premiere on June 6, 2018)
Afterword
Some of the answers in this interview are compiled from another one from 2013. Some of the answers from that interview were omitted and others were changed.[ka'mi], May 2013 & June 2018
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