“...come lo spazio compone il suono...”: Musical space in Luigi Nono’s A Pierre.
Date:
Mon, 05/17/2010 - 1:15pm
Location:
CCRMA Stage
Event Type:
Colloquium "...come lo spazio compone il suono...": Musical space in Luigi Nono’s A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet and live electronics (1985)
This paper will report on research undertaken to examine problems related to music for which conventional notation is inadequate. Our primary objects of study are recorded rehearsals and a performance of A Pierre, a late work by Luigi Nono (1924-90). In this composition, the microtonal, temporal and spatial aspects of the sounds produced by the two instrumentalists are manipulated in real time during the concert performance. The published score gives precise performance instructions for both the instrumentalists and the live-electronic manipulation, but it does not constitute an adequate basis for a study of the work. For this reason, we decided to make a detailed analysis of its performance, digitally recorded with the expert collaboration of colleagues at the Banff Centre in February 2009, notably Barry Shiffman, Henk Guittart and Theresa Leonard. The performers were: Marieke Franssen, contrabass flute, Carlos Juan Noain, contrabass clarinet; Juan Parra, sound direction. The team of recording engineers was led by John D. S. Adams. The recording was undertaken using multiple tracks, which allowed us to capture: 1) the direct sound of the instruments; 2) these sounds as they passed through the various stages of the live-electronic process; 3) the processed sound that enters the hall through loudspeakers. We were also able to record the resulting soundfield in first-order ambisonic B-format, using a Soundfield MKV microphone. Our presentation will include an ambisonic playback of A Pierre that reproduces the musical space intended by the composer, rather than the illusion of space created by surround-sound technology now ubiquitous in cinemas and home entertainment systems. The playback will be accompanied by a live visualization of the spherical sound field, computed in real time, using an experimental ambisonic player-decoder that we are developing.
Bios
Friedemann Sallis University of Calgary
Friedemann Sallis is Professor of musicology at the University of Calgary. He obtained his PhD under the direction of the late Prof. Dr. Carl Dahlhaus at the Technische Universität Berlin. His writings include a book on the early works of György Ligeti, the co-edition of A Handbook to Twentieth-Century Musical Sketches (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and numerous articles on twentieth-century music. As well as sketch studies, Dr. Sallis’s areas of expertise include the interaction of historical and theoretical perspectives in twentieth-century music, aesthetics, and issues concerning music and identity. He has received Fellowship Grants from the Paul Sacher Foundation (Basel) and since 1997 he has been awarded five successive research grants by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Ian Burleigh University of Lethbridge
Ian Burleigh is Assistant Professor (Digital Audio Arts) at the University of Lethbridge and PhD candidate (Computer Science and Music) at the University of Calgary under the supervision of Dr. Christian Jacob and Dr. David Eagle. He also holds an engineering degree (Ing., Electronic Computers) from Czech Technical University in Prague. As a PhD student, he has received a scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). His current research interests are focused on interdisciplinary applications of computation in sonic arts; this research activity is based on his extensive experience as a software engineer, as well as that of a freelance musician playing jazz, world, and experimental music.
Open to the Public