Pre-class response to set readings/listening - Spectral Music - week 4 T&P

I've never heard this term before, "Spectral Music". The description in the introductory chapter certainly makes it sound interesting. Such a great way to think about tonality/harmonic movement, and by adding timbrel development to the mix, and playing with colour in a way that is usually reserved for melody/harmony, well that's very interesting to think about.

The first of the listening pieces is Lux Aeterna by Gyorgy Ligeti. This piece is probably best known for it's use in 2001: A Space Odyssey, during the "trip" scene. An amazing piece. I've always been fascinated with the vocal timbre, and I've never been able to relate it to anything else. Listening to it in context with spectral music I notice that the timbrel variations in each register resonate, or vibrate, at different relative speeds, which I guess could be due to a serial harmonic relationship. I was aware of Ligeti's concepts of micropolyphony, and his use of cluster chords, and I always related that to colour effect of this piece, and it's relationship to the colourful visuals from Kubrick's film, that I so obviously associate with the piece.

I don't know anything about Gerard Grisey. but I love this music. The harmonic/timbrel interplay, and all the weird overtones make for a sharp, electric kaleidoscope of sound colours. I'm particularly fond of the violin passage towards the middle/end. Some really interesting phrases and timbrel expressions coming from the instrument. It's interesting to me, after the first part of the reading, that the listening excerpts are acoustic chamber music. I was expecting synthesizers, or more electronic sounds. The tones and colours emanated  from these two works are a staggering display of what good instrumental players are capable of generating from their strings, or brass, etc. It's like being trapped in the future sometimes, always thinking in terms of today, and the tools we use now. When really, the electronic tools of now are merely digital representations of the great things about the tangible side of music making history.

Scelsi is another composer who's name I'm unfamiliar with. The piece in the listening has way more going on than the reading excerpt would suggest. The use of varied dynamics and timbre are obvious characteristics, the micro tonal movement and micro-harmonic layering is ear bending, and really messes with the tone of the notes. Probably one of the best things I've heard in ages actually. This is something I tried to play with a lot on my new music to fall asleep to... record. sustaining long notes or clusters on an analogue synth, and slowly moving one of the oscillators tiny bits out of tune, varying little elements of filters on parts of the sound. The idea there being something with a dreamlike, forgettable, yet totally affecting quality. Scelsi's music also reminds me of some Xenakis music for cello and clarinet I saw performed, that uses a similar idea of out of tune unisons to create micro rhythms in the beating of frequencies. That piece also contained a timbrel exploration that occurred through the sustained, detuned notes.