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Kenneth Gaburo, "Five Works for Voices, Instruments, and Electronics"
New World
This collection is a curious combination of old and new. Gaburo, born1926 was trained as a composer in the old school and is clearlyinfluenced by pre-WW2 aesthetics and techniques but the music herecombines this with free-wheeling new-world invention in the age ofCage. The oldest of these five pieces from 1956 is a string quartetthat, while clearly comptetent, has more tutonic romanticism (in adecidedly Schoenberg style) than I prefer. Antiphony III and IV,dating from 62 and 67 respectively, both combine live musicians withelectronic music on tape, both set miniature poems by Virginia Hommel,and both aim to create a continuum between the sounds of the singersand instruments and the electronic sounds. The continuum was achievedby composing the pieces as a whole and orchestrating them withmusicians, recordings of the musicians, processed sounds from thoserecordings and synthetic sounds similar to all these. The result isconvincing and at times approaches the lyricism of Nono and Berio'selectro-acoustic music. But underlying it all is still clearlySchoenberg—Antiphony IV for tape and 16 voices being destinctlyreminicent of the choral work of the father of serialism. But there isalso a hint of Ligeti's Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures inthe more outlandish vocal techniques used. In these two pieces I findthat the combination of the old, in the formal and ensemble aspects,with the new, in the electronic and sound manipulation, actually worksvery well. They seem anchored in a familliar tradition while providingcompelling innovative personal expression. Mouth-Piece: Sextet for Solo Trumpet(1970) on the other hand is hideous. It is an excercise in extendedtechnique that would have been better left either to an improviser orto a composer who genuinely loves the trumpet. And that leaves The Flow of (u)a radically minimalistic piece for three voices all singing the samenote continuously using the "u" phoneme (i.e. "oo") for 23 minutes. Itis quintessential drone music that bears comparison to that of PhilNiblock. But while most drone music normally uses occasional changes tothe component tones this piece uses just the minutest continualvariation of pitch and tone color. The fact that this is sung by humanvoices is crucial to the success of the piece since the changing beatsand colors arise form the singers continually working to match pitchwith each other and to perfect their "u" sound. Extreme in itssimplicity it works in they way all good drone music works: bycaptivating attention and drawing one into facination with the minutedetail of the sound.
This collection is a curious combination of old and new. Gaburo, born1926 was trained as a composer in the old school and is clearlyinfluenced by pre-WW2 aesthetics and techniques but the music herecombines this with free-wheeling new-world invention in the age ofCage. The oldest of these five pieces from 1956 is a string quartetthat, while clearly comptetent, has more tutonic romanticism (in adecidedly Schoenberg style) than I prefer. Antiphony III and IV,dating from 62 and 67 respectively, both combine live musicians withelectronic music on tape, both set miniature poems by Virginia Hommel,and both aim to create a continuum between the sounds of the singersand instruments and the electronic sounds. The continuum was achievedby composing the pieces as a whole and orchestrating them withmusicians, recordings of the musicians, processed sounds from thoserecordings and synthetic sounds similar to all these. The result isconvincing and at times approaches the lyricism of Nono and Berio'selectro-acoustic music. But underlying it all is still clearlySchoenberg—Antiphony IV for tape and 16 voices being destinctlyreminicent of the choral work of the father of serialism. But there isalso a hint of Ligeti's Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures inthe more outlandish vocal techniques used. In these two pieces I findthat the combination of the old, in the formal and ensemble aspects,with the new, in the electronic and sound manipulation, actually worksvery well. They seem anchored in a familliar tradition while providingcompelling innovative personal expression. Mouth-Piece: Sextet for Solo Trumpet(1970) on the other hand is hideous. It is an excercise in extendedtechnique that would have been better left either to an improviser orto a composer who genuinely loves the trumpet. And that leaves The Flow of (u)a radically minimalistic piece for three voices all singing the samenote continuously using the "u" phoneme (i.e. "oo") for 23 minutes. Itis quintessential drone music that bears comparison to that of PhilNiblock. But while most drone music normally uses occasional changes tothe component tones this piece uses just the minutest continualvariation of pitch and tone color. The fact that this is sung by humanvoices is crucial to the success of the piece since the changing beatsand colors arise form the singers continually working to match pitchwith each other and to perfect their "u" sound. Extreme in itssimplicity it works in they way all good drone music works: bycaptivating attention and drawing one into facination with the minutedetail of the sound.
