Eclat Festival, Stuttgart, 2-5/2/17

[ahinton]

This must be the new symphony in C major Richard was mentioning here back on April 1st.

Has he transposed it, then? I could have sworn that it was in D major then! Everything may not have changed, but something has changed...

[ahinton]

That's £8.00, then (unless they're half pint glasses)...

[Richard Barrett]

This must be the new symphony in C major Richard was mentioning here back on April 1st.

There's no fooling you, is there.

[Bryn]

Bumping this with a link to the SWR2 webpage (click on the loudspeaker icon for audio streaming):

http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/konzerte/swr2-abendkonzert-dolby-digital-5-festival-eclat-2017/-/id=659392/did=19170712/nid=659392/sdpgid=1398750/1024n/index.html

20.03 CET on Friday 21 April: the first performance of my new orchestral piece everything has changed / nothing has changed, with the SWR Symphonieorchester conducted by Peter Rundel (plus music by Johannes Schöllhorn and Klaus Ospald).

If you are otherwise engaged that evening and would still like to hear it, let me know by PM.

Any idea what sample rate SWR2 uses for their 256kbps mp3 stream?

[Bother not. I should know soon after the end of the concert. I currently have the SWR2 stereo stream running on 2 different laptops. One is recording using Audacity (set to 96kHz sampling and 32 bit floating quantization to get the best out of what is being resolved from the mp3 stream by the laptop's audio chipset) and the other is being captured by HiDownload (Platinum Edition). The latter will show the sample rate of the mp3 stream once finished. What I am finding very perplexing is that the stream on one laptop is running several minutes behind the other. Several minutes, not just several seconds. How can this be?]

[Neil]

Well, it was certainly a very interesting piece, full of variety and contrast, and rich and complex textures. And all very taut and concentrated, I felt. Well worth listening to.
Tricky for me trying to follow it with the PDF score on the computer screen. However, I got to the last page on time..! I'd like to listen to it again several times but presumably that wouldn't be possible at the present time. Thank you, Richard, for this new musical experience.

[Beef Oven!]

First of all, well done to RB for producing such a great piece of music and facilitating our listening of it.

I’ve listened to it through about four or five times, and and will now either confirm that I know nothing about music, or demonstrate that I have an infeasibly idiosyncratic take on my favourite recreation!

I heard it as a symphony, in two parts of equal length, albeit quite short at 14 minutes. It’s a very tightly constructed composition with a palpable sense of momentum, including in relation to transients, which in a lot of modern music, do not contribute to the overall forward drive of the music. Sibelius is an example of a composer whose music has this sort of drive, IMV. The propulsion of the music continues through the second half of the work, and the ending is pure class!

There are plenty of very interesting timbre/sonority textures that are I’m sure are influenced by the way the players are using technique - I wonder if RB has been prescriptive in this regard. One could be forgiven for thinking that the wonderful SWR have had this piece in their repertoire for a long time.

Listening to RB’s music in general, and looking for reference points for my own comparisons, I have often been put in mind of Helmut Lachenmann; not that RB’s music is in any way derivative, thereby. I’m reminded of sections of Lachenmann’s 'Schreiben' and ’Notturno' for example. Anyone who has listened to RB’s work will know that whilst Lachenhmann, Rihm et al are 'cousins', RB’s music is unique.

A final thought, RB’s music works even better for me, the larger the forces. I hope he does more like this.

[teamsaint]

First of all, well done to RB for producing such a great piece of music and facilitating our listening of it.

I’ve listened to it through about four or five times, and and will now either confirm that I know nothing about music, or demonstrate that I have an infeasibly idiosyncratic take on my favourite recreation!

I heard it as a symphony, in two parts of equal length, albeit quite short at 14 minutes. It’s a very tightly constructed composition with a palpable sense of momentum, including in relation to transients, which in a lot of modern music, do not contribute to the overall forward drive of the music. Sibelius is an example of a composer whose music has this sort of drive, IMV. The propulsion of the music continues through the second half of the work, and the ending is pure class!

There are plenty of very interesting timbre/sonority textures that are I’m sure are influenced by the way the players are using technique - I wonder if RB has been prescriptive in this regard. One could be forgiven for thinking that the wonderful SWR have had this piece in their repertoire for a long time.

Listening to RB’s music in general, and looking for reference points for my own comparisons, I have often been put in mind of Helmut Lachenmann; not that RB’s music is in any way derivative, thereby. I’m reminded of sections of Lachenmann’s 'Schreiben' and ’Notturno' for example. Anyone who has listened to RB’s work will know that whilst Lachenhmann, Rihm et al are 'cousins', RB’s music is unique.

A final thought, RB’s music works even better for me, the larger the forces. I hope he does more like this.

Thanks Beefy , great to read your thoughts.
I was going to listen, tuned in bang on time, which turned out to be an hour late, of course.

[Beef Oven!]

Thanks Beefy , great to read your thoughts.
I was going to listen, tuned in bang on time, which turned out to be an hour late, of course.

You don’t have to ask a copper

[teamsaint]

https://greenwichmeantime.com/to/cet/to-uk-time/

I've been digging out a piece of my garden for a fortnight ( when not at work) , I'm allowing myself one small time zone error.

But thanks anyway. Should help on our holiday to Scotland

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks BeefO and Neil for your kind words.

With regard to sonority: I don't want to make a distinction between the structural and expressive character of a piece on the one hand, and its orchestration on the other. All aspects of instrumentation and technique are very precise. While the orchestra for this piece uses a number of non-standard instruments, such as electric guitar, bass oboe, piccolo trumpet, steel drums and so on, these aren't used as "special effects" but are (I hope) integrated into the textures such that you might not always even be aware of what's going on if you aren't following a score. It's a composition made of sounds rather than one made of notes, if that distinction makes any sense, and of course this kind of attitude is influenced by the experience of composing and playing electronic music. Although when I'm doing electronic music it seems to me that's strongly influenced by my ideas about instrumental composition, so it's impossible to know which comes first. Something that affects the sound quite profoundly but which might not be so clear from listening to the broadcast without seeing the orchestra is that the players are also laid out on stage in an unorthodox way. The main body of the orchestra, plus the solo string instruments you hear at the very start, is seated more or less normally, but the rest of the string players are divided into two equal groups placed to the conductor's left and right.

I would like these two "movements" eventually to be two of five (not the first two but possibly the first and last), because the possibilities of this instrumentation and stage layout have only really begun to be explored in that 14 minutes. It might look even more like a symphony then!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

First of all, well done to RB for producing such a great piece of music and facilitating our listening of it.

I’ve listened to it through about four or five times, and and will now either confirm that I know nothing about music, or demonstrate that I have an infeasibly idiosyncratic take on my favourite recreation!

I heard it as a symphony, in two parts of equal length, albeit quite short at 14 minutes. It’s a very tightly constructed composition with a palpable sense of momentum, including in relation to transients, which in a lot of modern music, do not contribute to the overall forward drive of the music. Sibelius is an example of a composer whose music has this sort of drive, IMV. The propulsion of the music continues through the second half of the work, and the ending is pure class!

There are plenty of very interesting timbre/sonority textures that are I’m sure are influenced by the way the players are using technique - I wonder if RB has been prescriptive in this regard. One could be forgiven for thinking that the wonderful SWR have had this piece in their repertoire for a long time.

Listening to RB’s music in general, and looking for reference points for my own comparisons, I have often been put in mind of Helmut Lachenmann; not that RB’s music is in any way derivative, thereby. I’m reminded of sections of Lachenmann’s 'Schreiben' and ’Notturno' for example. Anyone who has listened to RB’s work will know that whilst Lachenhmann, Rihm et al are 'cousins', RB’s music is unique.

A final thought, RB’s music works even better for me, the larger the forces. I hope he does more like this.

I'm away from my computer for a week or so, so using a new Tablet which I'm not yet used to and which keeps tutting at me, but I must give BeefO,s post a general thumbs up. TS wasn't the only one who has difficulty telling the time, but I've been able to listen a few times since and have got more from it each time.

Many thanks and congratulations to Richard. I shall say more later.

[Neil]

I have listened to the piece again and find it very intriguing and strange. I'm not an articulate commentator on music but it seems to me that it consists of a whole series of juxtaposed textural 'panels', each of which is often quite different from what came before, although there is a strong sense of coherence and unity in the whole because textures and patterns and even harmonies seem to reappear in different guises and recombine in the different sections later on.
The opening section, for example, with the strings sliding up and down in increasingly wide intervals is immediately engaging. Then, later, a strict rhythmic section full of pizzicato strings suddenly appears quite unexpectedly! There is a rather exciting and tense drive towards a climax to end the first part of the piece.
The second part (or movement), with the opening 'soundspace' strewn with extremely dry pitchless sounds is very strange indeed; it made me think of spiky cactus plants and dry emptiness. Aleatoric passages, I think, but within strict limits evoked in me vague memories of what Lutoslawski used to do. In the latter parts there are passages with slow, sonorous and substantial brass chords giving me an impression almost, of a kind of onward-driving inevitability; all of this I found particularly engaging and appealing. And late on there is a reminder of the very beginning, I think, and of ideas in previous sections but nothing is ever repeated exactly. And so this quite original piece comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
The David Bowie connection meant nothing at all to me, I'm afraid, because I've never listened to any of his songs. To me, he has always been just a name, remote, and nothing else - exactly as the name 'Beethoven' was to any neighbours I have ever had!
For good or ill, these are my personal reactions after listening twice now to this piece. Struggling with the on-screen PDF on the first listening ruined my ability to really concentrate on the music as it unfolded. I hope to listen again and get to know it better, or perhaps make more sense of it. Maybe my feelings and impressions of the work will change as it becomes more familiar. But it's good to be able to listen to it again in the future.

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks for your comments, Neil. It's always good to hear from such thoughtful listeners. A few comments of my own:

there is a strong sense of coherence and unity in the whole because textures and patterns and even harmonies seem to reappear in different guises and recombine in the different sections later on.
The opening section, for example, with the strings sliding up and down in increasingly wide intervals is immediately engaging. Then, later, a strict rhythmic section full of pizzicato strings suddenly appears quite unexpectedly!

The opening minute (played by a solo sextet of strings) introduces the strands of string glissandi (in one, two or four layers) which continue throughout the first half of the piece, at one point taking the form of microtonal scales and at another being articulated by pizzicati rather than bowed sounds, and then at the end drawing the entire string section together into a single complex glissando. These strands are intended to form a continuity through the first half, while the winds and percussion (plus harps and solo strings) play a sequence of almost independent structures, which on the other hand do have underlying features in common. Each of those seven sections begins with a clearly-defined sonority and develops into more timbrally-mixed sounds, with the beginnings played by a diminishing number of instruments: six strings, six brass, five single reeds (clarinets/saxes), four horns, three percussionists, two harps and finally one electric guitar. I would say (or hope!) that the sense of unity is also connected so the rather systematically serial way the music was composed, although it isn't necessary to be specifically aware of this, since the idea of serial composition isn't to relate everything back to a "series" but to relate everything to everything else so that a composition becomes a kind of sonic ecosystem, if that doesn't sound too pretentious.

The second part (or movement), with the opening 'soundspace' strewn with extremely dry pitchless sounds is very strange indeed; it made me think of spiky cactus plants and dry emptiness. Aleatoric passages, I think, but within strict limits evoked in me vague memories of what Lutoslawski used to do.

In the second half the roles of the orchestral groups are exchanged: the central wind/percussion (etc.) group is responsible for the continuous texture, although this undergoes various more or less subtle variations, while the string groups enter intermittently with aleatoric textures which usually involve few or no pitches (they're organised in a somewhat more complex way than in Lutoslawski, so as to remove the sense of repetitiveness).

The David Bowie connection meant nothing at all to me, I'm afraid, because I've never listened to any of his songs. To me, he has always been just a name, remote, and nothing else - exactly as the name 'Beethoven' was to any neighbours I have ever had!

That connection is really more a personal matter than anything else. It might well be even more mysterious to someone well versed in Bowie's music!

[Neil]

Many thanks for enlightening me a bit more, Richard. I'll study your comments and explanations later and I think this will help me understand and more fully enjoy your piece. I appreciate your input. I love to read the details of how a composition has been written.

[teamsaint]

I'm hoping to have a bit of time free this week, so if anybody could pm me the link that Richard provided, I'd be very grateful.
Cheers.