DVD, 2008, Capstone Records, CPS-8811; available from Capstone Records, 252 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11205-3612, USA; telephone 718-852-2919; fax 718-852-2925; Web capstonerecords.org.

Reviewed by Michael Boyd
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Roger Reynolds’s DVD Watershed IV, released by Mode Records in 1998, was the first contemporary music DVD to feature spatialized sound specifically designed for home 5.1 -channel diffusion. Since that time, DVDs featuring 5.1 surround-sound have become an increasingly popular way for composers to release multi-channel music. Space/Sound is a striking 2008 release from Capstone Records that continues this practice. This DVD features music by six composers: Thomas DeLio, Thomas Licata, Agostino Di Scipio, Kristian Twombly, Kees Tazelaar and Linda Dusman, whose works were created between 2004 and 2008 and represent a broad range of technical and aesthetic approaches. This diversity and the overall quality of each piece make the disc delightful to hear.

The DVD begins with songs entitled, “Foxrock, near Dublin…”(2005) and “...zwis chen den Worten” (2006) , two works by DeLio whose music is surely familiar to many readers.  These pieces, like several of this composer’s recent compositions, are electroacoustic settings of poetry, specifically poems by P. Inman and Paul Celan, respectively. The sounds of each composition are derived from readings of the poems, and notably, in the case of “Foxrock, near Dublin…,” that reading is by the poet. In the DVD liner notes, the composer articulates his larger approach to text- setting by quoting German musicologist Jürg Stenzl, who writes, “setting a poem means translating it into a completely different medium. In doing so, the text can be broken up, can disappear, or can even be impossible to hear.”   Indeed, these works are far from linear presentations of each poem. In the setting of Inman’s poem, one hears fragments of the poem intertwined with continuously fluctuating, inharmonic textures that seem to reflect the sonic structure of the text while thoroughly blurring the words themselves. At times when Inman’s voice is clearly audible, DeLio superimposes multiple readings of the same line of text, thus presenting multiple perspectives on those lines while slightly obscuring the words themselves. Many of these same techniques are observable in “...zwis chen den Worten.” In this work the composer incorporates whispered readings of the poem, which sonically reflect the noisy nature of the initial two words of the first Celan poem: schwimmhäute and zwischen. These whispered lines seem to be placed in opposition to semi-pitched, almost bell-like, inharmonic gestures at the work’s outset. As the piece progresses, c learly spoken lines of text emerge that eventually seem to merge with the inharmonic sounds, integrating the initially oppositional elements. Notably, both works incorporate periods of silence that allow the pieces to breathe, though not to the same degree found in much of DeLio’s earlier work.

Thomas Licata’s brief, charming work “thinning, and away” (2008) is comprised of a succession of short, noisy sounds that are relatively uniform. Most of these sounds emphasize upper frequencies, though a few occupy lower frequency regions and, because they occur less often, have a punctuating effect. The initial texture is quite active and relatively dense, though this characteristic changes over time. Regarding this dynamic, the composer writes that the work “is comprised of a series of sparsely-layered sound patterns and textures that, over time, are not only separated with increasing amounts of space but, significantly, are treated with diminishing levels of ‘presence’ in their sonic makeup. Through the juxtaposition of the pairings of connection/presence with that of separation/deterioration, these patterns (but not all) are transformed in a variety of contexts as they progress through the different stages of these pairings over the course of the work.” Most of the sounds are distributed throughout the front and surround speakers, enveloping the listener, though the lower, punctuating sounds are generally concentrated in the front, drawing one’s attention forward.

Agostino di Scipio’s untitled work is “the outcome of an improvisation that took place one night in October 2004, in the composer’s home studio.” Through a feedback line between a miniature microphone and four loudspeakers, the composer explored the acoustical nature of the room and his mouth, which he notes was “a smaller acoustical niche in the larger space.” In this work, one often hears a recurring pulsation, over which noisy vocal gestures and semi-pitched glissandi are superimposed. During the performance of this work, the composer’s mouth functioned both as a sound source, producing a diverse array of timbres and gestures, and a dynamic filter that regulated the feedback system, changing “the spectral structure of feedback events (changes in pitches, in resonance peaks, in amplitude, etc.).” Overall, d i Scipio’s piece is characterized by striking timbral/textural transformations and a delightful sense of spontaneity. Commenting on the work from a broader perspective, the composer writes, “It is probably best to think of the present recording not as a thing itself…but as a documentation of what happened that night. The result of another performance could be quite different, yet the system dynamics would be constant. Different times and different spaces lead to different sonic manifestations. Composition is the unifying thread.”

Kristian Twombly’s “Play I[-III]” (2004) is a setting of a Gertrude Stein play of the same title. Commenting on the play, the composer writes, “the text most often consists of wordplay based on alliteration and repetition, though it occasionally veers toward intelligibility. The occasional suggestion of intelligibility encountered throughout the text reminded me strongly of the behavior of chaotic strange attractors in mathematics, such as the Lorenz and Hénon attractors.” Twombly derived data from these attractors and used it to determine both the formal aspects of the piece as well as the small details. Regarding this process, he writes that “each recorded line of text was broken into collections of sentences, groups of words, individual words and phonemes. The Lorenz attractor was then utilized to choose what type of sound was heard, in what order, at what time, in which channel, by which speaker and, even, what nature of transformation was to be applied to each sound.” Formal divisions in the composition are demarcated by the narrator’s lines, which are unprocessed and spatially isolated in the right-hand satellite speaker. Aside from this single portion of the piece, the composer uses space in a dynamic manner that feels integral to the work. For example, at one point a series of repeated words are continuously heard in new locations, while at another point a larger sonic gesture moves through all channels, surrounding the listener. Intelligibility indeed is an important factor in this work, which at times presents full lines from Stein’s play, though it often focuses on single words and even phonemes, the latter of which draws attention to Stein’s use of alliteration and repetition. Sonic transformations also support this dynamic while adding timbral diversity to the piece. Twombly’s work is a rich interpretation of Stein’s play, truly highlighting some of its core structural characteristics.
“Phalanxes” (2005), a composition by Kees Tazelaar, was created at the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands. The work, consisting of synthetic sounds created at the institute’s voltage-controlled studio, begins with a series of noisy, reiterative gestures that grow in volume over a few seconds. This piece makes full use of all five speakers, initially drawing one’s attention to different locations and, as the density of sound increases, eventually surrounding the listener. (The composer notes that the piece was originally created for seven channels, and that it was mixed down to five for this recording.)  The sound material gradually changes over the course of the work, incorporating more continuous sounds and, about halfway through, employing inharmonic pitched material, which gradually degrades and eventually returns to the percussive sounds of the work’s opening.

The disc ends with Linda Dusman’s “magnificat 3: lament” (2004), the only piece on this DVD that incorporates video. This work was created collaboratively with animator Alan Price, and commissioned and performed by violinist Airi Yoshioka. Commenting on her composition, the composer notes the importance of “parabolic scales, scales which embody parabolic ratios…are heard in the computer generated score, along with recordings of cicadas.” The work begins with an angular, ascending violin gesture that is mirrored visually by an upward- growing animated plant. This basic visual premise of growth continues along with a series of shorter violin gestures that begin to incorporate multiple, electronically processed violin sounds, achieving an accumulative, denser texture. About three minutes into the piece, the music takes on a more static, sustained character (still primarily violin sounds), while the plant animations intertwine to form more abstract braided structures that move in response to sound fluctuations. Over time, the animation becomes increasingly abstract, as accumulative, reiterative sound gestures are brought into the foreground in both the live violin and the electronics parts. A layer of noise, the recorded cicadas mentioned by the composer, gradually emerges, nicely matching the static animation of this section. The final section of “magnificat 3: lament” returns to the material of its opening: angular, melodic violin gestures and animated plants. This return is not exact, as the violin phrases are more far-reaching, and the plant growth seems to reach completion and then transitions to the image of a red curtain-lined stone hallway. The final image is of Yoshioka playing the violin; she performs throughout with great sensitivity.
Overall, Space/Sound is characterized by significant aesthetic and technical diversity. The ability to experience the works of these six composers in four or five channels, rather than two, makes hearing these works a much richer experience that is, importantly, closer to each composer’s creative intentions. Listening to these pieces is simultaneously challenging and rewarding. I highly recommend this recording!