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A session with rhythm. This solo recording presents three major works for solo percussion by the Danish composers Per Nørgård, Ejnar Kanding and Ivar Frounberg.
A session where rhythm is a medium, approached either acoustically or interacting with live-electronics and leading us to experience various constellations.
The title Rhythmical Seance, is inspired by the names of two paintings of the Danish Painter and Poet Hans Tyrrestrup: Rytmiske figurer and Scenic Seance. Hans Tyrrestrup has been very kind to let me use the beautiful painting that enhances the cover of this recording.
I Ching (The Book of Changes), four movements for solo percussion, was written in 1982 and dedicated to the Danish percussionist Gert Mortensen. I Ching is the thousand year old Chinese oracle book, whose 64 combinations of six Yang or Yin lines (bright or dark) represent 64 different states of being for all living things including human beings. The 64 states of being should be thought of as an eternal, hidden cycle which lies behind everything that we do: for example the supreme, the enthusiastic, initiative (combination or hexagram no. 1, the creative) or the despair of the moment, the warm and friendly, and so on. The states of being exist on all levels - the official, the private etc. - at the same time in many speeds.
Over a period of six years I have in about 10 works worked with a percussion version of the "infinity row structures", which has since 1960 been the basis of my compositional method. Since it was precisely bright and dark sounds - yang and yin - that permeated these percussion pieces in a multitude of layers in tempo and texture, the concept of I Ching was a natural source of inspiration for me, when Gert Mortensen prompted me to write my second piece for solo percussion.
Even if the composer recommends a total performance in the shown order, choice is left up to the musician in connection with performance of the following movements, for which I have chosen four hexagrams or states of being, with the following titles and numbers:
No. 51 (1st movement): Thunder Repeated: The image of Shock
No. 9 (2nd movement): The Taming Power of the Small (9 sounds)
No. 57 (3rd movement): The Gentle, the Penetrating
No. 64 (4th movement): Towards Completion: Fire over Water
Per Nørgård
tonlos Los tonlos (2007; toneless Lot toneless) was commissioned by and dedicated to Christian Martínez with support from The State Arts Foundation. As a child I was fascinated by the sound of the tam-tam, which my grandmother used, when she called for lunch. The fascination continued and has manifested itself into this composition, which is a profundication in the sound of the tam-tam from the inaudible to the extremely loud. When the musician treats his instrument he is visible. Meanwhile the real-time processing of the computer is invisible but audible. As with water and wind, the toneless expression of the work might be experienced as the world and its mirror.
Einsam steigt er dahin, in die Berge des Urleids.
Und nicht einmal sein Schritt klingt aus dem tonlosen Los.
Rainer Maria Rilke: Die zehnte Elegie
Alone, he climbs to the mountains of Primal Pain.
And never once does his step resound from the soundless lot.
Rainer Maria Rilke: The tenth elegy
The tam-tam and gong are similar metal instruments, but often confused. Whereas the gong has a definite pitch, the noise spectrum of the tam-tam is varied and rich in sound potential; just like wind or water. A selection of different mallets are utilised in my composition, varying in both size and hardness, for example rubber with resin, brushes, bass bow, metal stick, drumsticks and claves. The resulting acoustic sound in itself is tremendous on its own, but I use the computer to go deeper into the sound. The computer does not add synthetic or pre-produced sounds, but manipulates the tam-tam in real-time and spatializes it in surround-sound, over four speakers.
Many works in the 20th century include the tam-tam and increasingly show a tendency to use noise as a musical expression. In 1964, Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 - 2007) composed Mikrophonie I, a work for tam-tam and electronics manipulated by six musicians. Two microphones are used in order that, as Stockhausen puts it, normally inaudible vibrations . . . are made audible. What at that time demanded six musicians; two operating the microphones, two playing the tam-tam and two treating the sound electronically, is now made possible with only one musician using a computer.
I have developed a program in MaxMSP that zooms into the microscopic sounds and obtains a similar effect. www.kanding.com
Ejnar Kanding, 2008
The work was written in 1990 and derives its title from T. S. Elliott´s "Four Quartets", the fourth paragraph of
the first poem: Burnt Norton, a poem that refers closely to the literature canon.
Humble, I have approached this poem and the quotes from it, that were significant for me in the late 80´s and beginning of the 90´s.
My music does not contain similar references to music, literature, certainly not canonical works; but it is based on the thinking of modernity, something not alienated to T.S Eliot: being both post-modern and modern at the same time.
The bell is ticking out: various polyrhythms come together in one pulse: a bell that strikes. But the bell is labile, dissolves gradually and questions the musician´s and the audience´s pulse. Follow it.
From being focused on a fixed pulse, the work moves gradually towards tone. A harmonic labyrinth, that can be explored through different phenomenological readings of what we possibly may experience: harmony pointing towards the center of the world, at the still point of the turning world (which I used as a title for another work). The connection and the context pointing towards a concept as a loss during the time I have lived. Like Bach, I stick to a bygone- time expression!
I agree, despite that I had to move from modernity to post modernity, as the text model suggests: dark clouds take the sun away! alas, the focus is lost. 17 years later.
Ivar Frounberg, Oslo 2008 | 
