Tuesday April 24, 2007 at 7:30 PM
The Manhattan School of Music: Room 607
TACTUS “Plugged In”
Environment/Four: Re-synthesis - E. Antonellis

Monday April 23, 2007 at 7:30 PM
The Manhattan School of Music: Greenfield Auditorium
Electronic Music Composers’ Concert
Environment/Four: Re-synthesis - E. Antonellis (premier)

Next week, I will have two opportunities to perform a new work for Soprano Saxophone and Live Electronics by friend and composer Evan Antonellis. Here is what he has to say about the piece:

The composition Environment/Four: Re-synthesis for soprano saxophone and live electronics is an exploration of a particular type of relationship between instruments and electronics. I’ve always believed that the function of electronics, at least in terms of their combination with instruments, should be to heighten the abilities and versatility of the performers and their instruments, just as the adding of a sustain pedal on a piano increased the abilities of the instrument in terms of tone production. Therefore, in considering Environment, one must consider the electronics and the instrument to be a single entity instead of a collaboration or a conversation – The instrument itself is responsible for all the sounds heard through the loudspeakers, but the instrument itself is heard only through the electronics; in this composition, there is no consideration for balance between the levels of the instrument and the electronics, and the fact that the electronics are entirely “live” makes this relationship a plausible one. In tape music, for instance, there is a historical relationship between the tape and performer: it is usually one of synchronicity, but also opposition. A composition’s relationships and materials define its meaning, so the environment that the piece creates is an extremely important consideration, especially for electronic works, where each piece can often have its own syntax. In terms of this composition, the previous statement is important on three fronts.

Firstly, the responsiveness of the instrument (saxophone and electronics together, remember) to its own environment: the range of possible sounds that can be produced in any piece involving a computer cannot be infinite; therefore, there must be an environmental equilibrium at which all variables are at rest. In a piece of Mozart, this could be a tonic chord preceded by a Perfect Authentic Cadence. Here, the note “A” above middle “C”, when played at the dynamic piano, is the equilibrium. Since the electronics are designed to heighten the abilities of the saxophone, the piece is made of deviations to and from that note. The saxophone never plays louder than piano, and almost always plays within a Perfect Fifth. Of course, there are many sounds in this piece that exceed both of those limitations, so the electronics are quite literally magnifying the abilities of the instrument, similar to a steering wheel on a car or a “stick” on a fighter jet.

The materials of this composition are meant to accumulate into a revelation. This is the second point: that the materials build on each other and develop in a positive way, hence “re-construction”. There are so many electronic pieces whose main goal are to create sounds that have never been heard before, and in the context of live electronics, that usually means destroying the input sound and turning it into something entirely different. I felt that it was much more interesting to write a piece that reveals its own input (in this case, the saxophone) over time, thereby building itself up over the course of the piece. This basic change should be quite audible, but there are also other non-linear continua taking place in addition, non-linear meaning that these “secondary” transformations are not direct, nor are they complete.

The third important thing to remember about the materials that are used in this piece is that in addition to contributing to an environment and being part of an accumulation, they create their own form. This is the word four is important: four refers to fourth-dimensionality, and although I have used that concept in many different ways, in this piece it means that the material creates the form from a cellular entity (the equilibrium) that is stretched in four dimensions over the course of the piece. This idea could be contrasted with that of the usual idea about form, where form is one particular articulation of a material or theme. What this means is that Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata is one particular articulation of a theme, but the theme itself exists in its natural environment only in a sketch. Therefore, the idea itself is three-dimensional, and it is allowed to roam in the fourth dimension (time, or form) for around 25 minutes. Contrariwise, Environment is about an equilibrium or theme that exists continually for the entire piece, and the listener’s consistent exposure to this theme and its variants exposes the meaning of the theme itself. Furthermore, since the material creates its own form, and since the form of this piece can be different in every performance, the hierarchy of memory is continually changing as well. Here is what I mean by hierarchy of memory: in listening to a work, collections of sounds are stored in the listener’s brain as memory. These collections of sounds are always grouped together, and many particular sounds are not remembered, but instead sensed as part of the general environment of the piece. These sounds occupy short-term memory. On the other hand, some sounds stick out from the rest; these sounds are outliers – they often deviate a great deal from the equilibrium of the piece. These discrete events are remembered for long after the piece is over, therefore they occupy long-term memory. In Environment/Four: Re-synthesis, the hierarchy of memory between long-term and short-term is designed in such a way so it will be different every time, allowing the listener to hear more and more about the piece in multiple listenings, and herein lies the advantage of considering music in four dimensions.

Environment/Four: Re-synthesis was composed between March and April, 2007. It features the soprano saxophone and real-time electronic processing produced by the Kyma system. It is exactly eight minutes long.