Subject: Re: Analysis References?
From: Martinfumarola@aol.com
Date: Tue Jan 02 2001 - 11:37:51 EST
> my comment is:
>
> I think the question "really" being asked was not just about Kaija
> Saariaho's music in particular, but rather, about the "possible
> approaches, problems, examples" of "musical analysis", when the subject
> is a work of "mixed" nature ("instruments/orchestra plus tape"). I think
> this means, what do we do, what does it mean, to "analyze" a work that
> includes tape? (where "analysis" must therefore mean something quite
> different than tonal harmonic analysis of diatonic pitched Western music
> a la Schenker etc.)
>
> I don't mean to criticize Martin for offering those pertinent references
> to the composer's music. Perhaps there are examples, sufficient for
> Alan's purpose, in the cited references, of approaches & techniques for
> analyzing mixed works, but perhaps not.
>
> This is interesting to me, about how we think & decide what's "really"
> being asked, in a vague statement of a question, subject to linguistic &
> semantic & human interpretation..... this may be more related to the
> recent "phonon/phoneme" topical thread than to any specific musical
> thread, pardon me.
>
Chris, I just tried to give one of the possible approaches. Then, Dr.
Simmon Emerson and John Young gave another ones. Although Alan
Stones is studying mixte pieces in general he says "more particularly
looking at Kaija Saariaho's "Verblendungen" and then seeking
"references to papers or books which might be relevant (possible
approaches, problems, examples, etc.) ?". As originally stated,
Alan posting can be approached (and responded) in more than one way.
One not necessarily should respond to the whole question originally
posted, we can refer to parts of it, and that contributes to the whole
(or to more than the whole, to say it in a "gestaltic" manner).
Here is something of what I found online in the websites of the Finnish
Music Information Centre http://www.fimic.fi
and its link: http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/saariaho.html
In Verblendungen (1982–84), her first orchestral work, Saariaho continued to
work with gradual pitch changes. This composition is also based on a single
vision of form. Its pictorial metaphor is a brushstroke, with a thick,
powerful
beginning gradually giving way to thin 'lattices'. The work begins with a
bang
and subsides gradually towards the end. The tape score interwoven with the
instrumental score is rough and noisy at the beginning, bright and
translucent
at the end. The instruments travel in the opposite direction from music to
noise, finally dying away. The work climbs from the low and middle registers
toward the heights. A chord which contains all intervals forms the harmonic
foundation, undergoing various metamorphoses in the course of the work. Each
of the
various parameters has its specific developmental curve, as in Vers le blanc
and in the earlier work ...sah den Vögeln (1981, for ensemble and live
electronics), which is not yet in the static style of prolonged pitch. The
events in Verblendungen were not strictly predetermined, however: the
composer made use of her craft,
taste, and intuition to put the finishing touches to the work.
Verblendungen (1984)
Saariaho's first orchestral composition was Verblendungen (1984), which
features a 35-member orchestra and tape. The piece is an illustrative example
of the slow processes of transformation which characterize many of Saariaho's
works. After the initial explosion, the overall form is shaped by the long
diminuendo, gliding as if unawares from one acoustic situation to the next.
Kaija Saariaho
Verblendungen
Composed: 1982–1984
2111 alto saxophone/4111/00/1, piano, tape, strings: 8–5–3–2
Produced at the GRM Studio (Paris), and at the Experimental Studio of the
Finnish Broadcasting Company
Duration: 14'
Commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company
Fp: Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen, Helsinki,
April 10, 1984
Publisher: Edition Wilhelm Hansen
"The musical material of the tape part has been worked out with GRM's digital
tools (studio of the Groupe Recherche Musicale, Paris) for manipulating and
transforming concrete sound material.
"The basic material for the tape consists of two violin sounds, a sforzato
stroke and a pizzicato. From these two sounds I have built a quasi-string
orchestra with a very wide pitch range. The timbres on the tape are very
homogenous because of this single reference spectrum.
"The final mixing was made in the Finnish Radio's Experimental Studio,
Helsinki, with Jussi Liimatainen.
"The total plan for the use of timbre in the piece is based on the idea that
the orchestra and the tape are moving in opposite directions with respect to
the tone—noise axis. The piece starts with a thick orchestral tutti, which is
first hidden and then shaded by the noise on the tape. During the piece the
orchestral colouring is transformed into instrumental noises, which, before
withering away, shade the quasi-string orchestra on the tape.
"The orchestra is built to have a heterogenious nature to contrast with the
even colours on the tape. In spite of their different, sometimes opposite
materials, the orchestra and the tape should build a common, unseparable
sound world.
"When composing the piece an important factor has been the relation of the
surface structure and deeper musical and formal structures. In my network, of
connections between different parameters I am searching for intersections not
only vertically and horizontally on the time axis, but also in the direction
or depth, as if the sounds were organised in thin layers in three dimensional
perspective, starting from dry, grainy sounds in front and moving towards
smooth, more resonant ones.
"Dazzling, different surfaces, tissues, textures. Weights, gravity. To be
blinded. Interpolations. Reflections. Death. The sum of independent worlds.
Shading, refracting the colour.
"Verblendungen is dedicated for Esa-Pekka Salonen, who conducted the first
performance in Helsinki, Finland with The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in
April 1984."
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This has been my humble contribution.
MF
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