Music For Voices, Instruments & Electronic Sounds
Music For Voices, Instruments & Electronic Sounds
Kenneth Gaburo - Conductor
Engineering: Carl Volkers
Cover Art: Bob Pepper
Cover Design: Elaine Gongora
Coordinator: Teresa Sterne
Art Director: William S. Harvey
Nonesuch H-71199 STEREO
SIDE ONE
Antiphony III (Pearl-white moments) (1962)
16 voices & electronics (16:24)
SIDE TWO
Exit Music 1: The Wasting of Lucrecetzia (1964)
concrète & electronic sounds (3:43)
Antiphony IV (Poised) (1967)
voice, piccolo, bass trombone, double-bass & electronics (9:24)
Exit Music II: Fat Millie's Lament (1965)
concrète & electronic sounds (4:34)
THE NEW MUSIC CHORAL ENSEMBLE
Group 1:
Barbara Dalheim, Shirley Panish, Douglas Pummill, Lawrence Weller
Group 2:
Janet Pummill, Miriam Barndt, Brian Winter, Philip Larson
Group 3:
Rosalind Powell, Marcia Swengel, William Brooks, David Barron
Group 4:
Jean Geil, Bonnie Barnett, Albert Hughes, Richard Hanson
Members of THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CONTEMPORARY CHAMBER PLAYERS Thomas Howell, piccolo; James Fulkerson, bass trombone; Thomas Fredrickson, double-bass; Barbara Dalheim, voice (left speaker system in Antiphony IV)
KENNETH GABURO
conductor
Antiphony III was commissioned in 1960 by the Fromm Music Foundation. It was composed during 1962-3 at the Yale and University of Illinois Electronic Music Studios, and was premiered on February 21, 1967, at the University of Chicago.
Antiphony IV was commissioned by the University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players in 1966, and was premiered at Smith College, January 23, 1968.
The poems for Antiphony III and IV are by Virginia Hommel, This album marks the recording debut of the New Music Choral Ensemble and members of the University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players. The primary concern of both groups is performing excellence with regard to New Music. The New Music Choral Ensemble was formed by Kenneth Gaburo in 1965. Its repertoire, which to date includes over 40 works, ranging from improvisation to total control, is reflective of the diversity of contemporary compositional thought.
Kenneth Gaburo (b. 1926, Raritan, New Jersey) studied at the Eastman School of Music (B.M., M.M., composition); Conservatorio di Santa Cecelia, Rome; Princeton Seminar in Advanced Musical Studies, and received a D.M.A. in composition from the University of Illinois. He has held a Fulbright Grant, a UNESCO creative fellowship, commissions from the Fromm and Koussevitzky Music Foundations, and most recently has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Thorne award, and holds membership in the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Illinois. From 1956 to 1968, Mr. Gaburo was Professor of Composition at the University of Illinois and is currently Professor of Music, University of California (San Diego).
From the back cover: Antiphony III grew out of an idea to compose a concerto for voices. To this end, research begun in 1959 in the physio-acoustic domain of vocal transmission-which I can now term compositional linguistics - proved invaluable. The poem, with regard to its formal design, semantic and phonetic content, morphology and articulatory potential (governed on one level by concerns for intelligibility), to a large extent determined the structure of the composition.
Pearl-white moments these
Set between two specks from the salt of time,
To be again, 'twere fantasy,
To not have been....
Alone and still
Being, chill nor fierce,
'Til once, a soul-felt breath imbued its life,
Depths of pitch to light of light.
Moments stolen from the jaws of time,
Even all the whiteness of blue-washed pearl,
A fault?
Or chance, with brilliance divined.
To know, one longs for surety
Of future light or loss,
Happily denied,
My white-drenched soul finds hushed beauty in love unnamed,
And freedom from salty chains.
On a fundamental level Antiphony III is a physical interplay between live performers and two speaker systems (tape). In performance, 16 soloists are divided into 4 groups, with one soprano, alto, tenor, and bass in each. The groups are spatially separated from each other and from the speakers. Antiphonal aspects develop between and among the performers within each group, between and among groups, between the speakers, and between and among the groups and speakers.
On another level Antiphony III is an auditory interplay between tape and live bands. The tape band may be divided into 3 broad compositional classes: (1) quasi-duplication of live sounds, (2) electro-mechanical transforms of these beyond the capabilities of live performers, and (3) movement into complementary acoustic regions of synthesized electronic sound. Incidentally, I term the union of these classes elec- tronics, as distinct from tape content which is pure concrete-mixing or electronic sound synthesis. The live band encompasses a broad spectrum from normal singing to vocal transmission having electronically associated characteristics. The total tape-live interplay, therefore, is the result of discrete mixtures of sound, all having the properties of the voice as a common point of departure.
Furthermore, Antiphony III is a poetic interplay between the voice as a self-contained entity, and the voice as a carrier of endless human expression, as the chief antagonist against the laboratory view of the machine, as the word (still stronger than the sword), and as the transmitter of poetic energy.
But if the poetry of III may be seen as a most subtle, "unnamed " expression of real love possessing the quiet beauty of a pearl, but poten- tially corruptible by metaphoric salt, then The Wasting of Lucrecetzia must be seen as its most grotesque opposite. Although the phenomenon is widespread, I cannot subscribe to the assumption of equivalence between shades and actor, between grass-acid and poet-philosopher, between available synthesizers and composer, and therefore, I am as revulsed by the existence of the poisonous rape mentality – which makes tame by comparison the corrupt deeds of Sextus Tarquinius (THAT son-of-a Superbus) and Lucretia Borgia-as I am by the testimony of pseudo-cyberneticists who validate this mentality with their sweeping scientific (sic) generalizations about the equivalence of things.
It's all so simple if you lay it on a scrap-pile and label it social reality on the rock(s). Lamentably, that rock is not peter-neither is mine. But I am drawn into that heap to at once characterize the waster and to waste him without discrimination and in his own language, allowing myself the smallest pleasure (I think also a distinction) of knowing that I have used my own scraps-in my own bag-then OUT! But art is not so simple as all that. Because I go for complexity. ThereIV:
Poised above the sea as if to drop
Tense.
heavy, hot
Waits
Gaining strength
And pours forth in soaring chill illusion!
Assign a voice to the left speaker system (LC). Transcribe the poem phonetically. Structure phonemes (i.e., phonetic class-variability). Consider transient phonemes (e.g., not [ POI], but [PA OI), the first sounds of Poised). Generate via a single live voice one and only one instance of each phonemic class. Structure these according to their continuant, non-continuant properties. Apply Jespersen's resonance chart. Associate these classes with parameters of pitch, intensity, duration, timbre. Structure silence. Retain normal (natural) voice identity for each first ordered instance of a phoneme class. Consider time-point distributions of same. Set up a vector for the invariant phonemes (e.g., consider each ordered instance of a recurrent phoneme to be a transform of its predecessor). Determine the set of electro-mechanical operations required to yield these transforms such that the n transform limit for each class is fixed by intelligibility-retention within that class. Give special weight to unique phonemes (those which appear only once such as [3] of "illusion"). Structure phonemes as separate entities. Unite phonemes. Structure words as separate entities. Unite words. From these operations, plot linear density flow from least to most (culminate at "soaring"). Establish the sense of the voice as orchestra. Structure nuance. Use the totality of LC characteristics to determine the set of RC characteristics (electronic sound), and, in performance, stage-left live instrumental characteristics. Structure macro-expression between LC-RC (e.g., what class of electronic signals intersect and complement the acoustics of the voice, of the instruments, of the poem?). "Illusion" must be a coda. Consider weighted parametric simultaneities between channels to be a function of poetic accent (e.g., LC-RC intersect on "heavy"). Consider non-adjacent relationships between channels (e.g.. the double-bass tremolo against the word "if", and the choir of basses- [r]tn LC at "soaring"). Use non-random processes. Structure duets. Consider precise interaction in performance between instrumentalists and tape. Is a conductor necessary? Use microphones. Consider criteria for the proper perception of the work.
If one makes the proper term substitutions, the foregoing parallels techniques and thoughts used in Antiphony III. Nevertheless, the works are different. Primary in this regard is the larger conceptual level of the function and meaning of antiphony. Both Antiphonies involve a mental interplay between you and me. In III, my concern was to achieve an acoustic mass-density-weight distribution-such that the output appears to be sourceless. Within this mass there exists the normal order of the poem (imbedded, as is its counterpart, the pearl). You should eventually be able to extract this order, and the process of extraction creates its own antiphony. In IV, contrarily, a complex of non-mass signals are given-non-density weight opposition-such that the output is clearly A-B stereophony. You are bombarded with isolated phonemes, words, word-chains, and sound utterances. You are required to assemble these by way of a mental juggling activity (hence antiphony) until the necessary links to form a linear version of the poem obtain. Once the process of extraction or assemblage is complete, a final antiphonal level is possible:
Antiphony is the state of fluctuation between the total music and the poem as poem, particularly with regard to the sound and meaning of each. It is trivial to assert that music and poem can never be placed in a one-to-one correspondence-the one is neither a representation nor a paraphrase of the other – however, there does exist a state of poetic transference between the two (an antiphony which cannot be resolved, but since I am in between them, I delight in trying and lament at the impossibility of resolution). The very nature of Pearl-white moments and of Poised reflects this dichotomy in its own way, for the poet has meticulously structured this element. The words are at once specific and general, channeled and unchanneled (e.g., the "pearl" is "love" but "unnamed"; and "poised" – is it orgasmos or merely anti-peripteros?) – and I further delight in that controlled freedom to select and choose my own meaning without destroying or obfuscating poetic meaning – but all of that is too vague, I suppose, for Millie, for she is not only very real, but a realist. Besides, she has her own lament, which gives rise to this poem in her behalf:
Fat Millie (must)
Squash her tuh (what?)
Every time she sits
––––––––– think.
00,ee,oo,ee,ooo,eeeeeeeeeesquaack!
tuh tuhtuhtuh tuh tuh tuhwhack!
(unfortunately this form proved insufficient since it didn't do Millie's reality justice. The recorded version hopefully represents a slight improvement. Someday I may also carve her. In any case I must gratefully acknowledge Morgan Powell's permission for the quoted segment from his gorgeous jazz composition, Odomtn, and at the same time ask his indulgence for the fact that the quote happens to coincide com- positionally with Millie's most painful moment. With such a problem she has no business sitting [in] on the affairs of serious people)
00,cc,00,ee,000,eeeeeeeeeesquaack! (softly, millie)
– KENNETH GABURO
