Subject: Re: Mixed EA Analysis References
From: KEVIN AUSTIN (KAUSTIN@vax2.concordia.ca)
Date: Mon Jan 08 2001 - 21:11:42 EST
>From: Alan Stones <alanstones@callnetuk.com>
wrote about
>Subject: Re: Mixed EA Analysis References
>In response ... I have to (perhaps rather sheepishly...)
>admit that the question was deliberately vague - to try to draw as broad a
>response as possible, both in terms ... and more specifically to any
>work/thinking anybody may have done around mixed electroacoustic music and
>its analysis.
As an aside, the (Hungarian/)-Canadian composer and electronic music
pioneer Istvan Anhalt composed a number of mixed works in the mid-
late-sixties, including Cento (mixed choir and tape), Focii (chamber
ensemble and tape), and the massive Symphony Number Two (Modules) --
planned for orchestra and tape, but the tape part was not done.
Cento extended 'traditional' and 'stochastic' choral techniques which
were used as the basis for the (mono) tape. The object was (not unsimilar
to Stockhausen's) to extend and tear at the fabric of sound, frequently
in the confusion aiming for fusion, and frequently for a ripping apart of
time. (Composed c 1967).
Focii is a more complex multi-movement work: strong psychological under-
and over-tones are able to be (re-)presented by voices, live in body, and
disembodied through loudspeakers. A dark, angular view of Ligeti's
Nouvelle aventure, brought into the recesses of the 20th century mind. A
plea for and against psychology.
The Symphony of Modules (c 1966 if I recall correctly) is a big (22
minute) klang-mass structure, organic orchestral study. Anhalt wrote
where (and what) the tape cues 'would be', but it seems the piece needed
an orchestra to help prepare the materials that were designed to explode
and convolute the orchestra and the listening space. It also requires the
recording of a childrens (?) choir.
For a short time in the early-90s, I worked a little on how to get a
'working version'. A number of cues were dropped, and it was proposed
that most of the remaining ones could (by this time) 'almost' be done as
live processing / manipulation. Today it would be even easier to do given
the state of real-time manipulation etc. The childrens choir is essential
so this (would) remain(s) a block to preparing a 'finished' version.
(Also the size of the orchestra and the idea that 'color-sound-block
mass-structure' orchestral pieces don't sell well these days means that a
performance may be quite some time off.)
Breifly to sum up ... I think Anhalt's work largely focused on the
(massive and often monumental) extension(s) of traditional forces
(traditional in the 1960s sense of the avant-garde, which is now so passe').
I believe the scores are available through the Canadian Music Centre, and
there are some articles (as I recall) written about Cento and Focii.
Best
Kevin
kaustin@vax2.concordia.ca
PS My (MMA) thesis was a work for four-channel tape and live "electronic
music improvisation ensemble". It was performed 'in the round' in an
eight-channel configuration. I think that it was one of the first MMAs to
have a tape/live performance as the examination (at least in Canada).
-5. The snow has stopped for a while. Winter's dark begins to shudder as
there was light on the horizon, ever so slightly, at 5:00 pm this afternoon.
Happy New Year of the Snake
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