A Brief Look at Belgian Experimental Composers and Sound Artists - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Brief Look at Belgian Experimental Composers and Sound Artists
Review of two valuable books on Belgian Composers*

Ever since liberation in 1944-45, Belgium has been a fascinating country, both in the context of visual arts (it is enough to think of the COBRA group and of the post-war continuity, with regard to surrealism) and in the field of music. As for the cinema as an art form, who would forget Joris Ivens? Or Chantal Ackerman?

As far as music is concerned, we always were aware of course of a lively jazz scene in Brussels. Then, of course, chansons had a Belgian touch. Jacquel Brel and others were on our minds. But experimental music? electronic music? Outside Belgium, those not so acutely familiar with the lively cultural reality of the country would think of France, even if Belgian composers were talked about.

We owe it to the initiative of the composer and sound artist Baudouin Osterlynck, a French-speaking Flamand with a beautiful Argentinian wife, that two important books were published in the 1980s that assembled valuable statements by a number of experimental composers at home in Belgium.

The first of these books, entitled DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, TOME I: MUSIQUES, was published in 1981 by PMA-Editions. It contains contributions by eight Belgian experimental and avant-garde composers.** They are Arsene Souffriau, Piotr Lachert Frederic Nyst, André Riotte, Baudouin Oosterlynck, Robert Fesler, Dominique Lawalree and Annette Vande Gorne.

The text of Arsene Souffriau is entitled ‘Parcours’, that of Frederic Nyst ‘Le nombre et les eaux’, André Riotte contributes his ‘Mise au point en forme de glossaire’, Robert Fesler writes about ‘Plaisir d’electricien et monde intérieur’, Dominique Lawalree supplies ‘Notes’ and Annette Vande Gorne asks ‘Vous avez dit: « Bizarre » ?’

1. Arsene Souffriau

In the text contributed by him to DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, TOME I: MUSIQUES, Arsene Souffriau remembers his first film musique that was written in 1945. It prompted the cinéaste Charles Dekeukelaire to ask for his collaboration on a new film that Dekeukelaire was about to make. The two artists also collaborated later on with respect to other films. The adventure of working with Dekeukelaire was meaningful.

“C’est aussi en cours de ces travaux qu’il m’est permis de prendre conscience du rapport son/image.
En effet, selon les grosseurs de plan, le son devoir avoir une résonance correspondante (perspective sonore) - cela s’obtient bien entendu au moment de la prise de son, mais déjà avec les moyens rudimentaires de l’époque on essayait des corrections sur les bruits par des filtrages ou des réverbérations artificielles […]” (p.10)

In 1949-50, the composer was involved in writing works for which “l’application du système dodécaphonique” was essential. (p.10)

“Les années 60, c’est assez bien de musique dodécaphonique bien sûr, beaucoup de musique fonctionnelle, de la musique électronique et également aléatoire.
Mes conversations avec Cage notamment en 1958 à l’ « Expo », eurent une grande influence sur moi, comme sur bien d’autres d’ailleurs.”

Among his aleatory works, Souffriau mentions, for instance, ‘Dichroïsme 1’ opus 147 pour flûte, haut-bois, clarinette, bassin et orchestra à cordes (1962).

“[...] l’œuvre est de durée fixe, l’orchestre a quatre séquences d’un minute à jouer, à certains moments et dans l’ordre que le chef d’orchestre précise avant l’exécution – les quatres solistes ont également des séquences séparées, écrites dans des tempi différents et leurs interventions sont
fixées par un carnevas temporel, leurs séquences pouvant être jouées dans un ordre de leur choix et sans se consulter au préalable.”(p.14)

links:

http://www.souffriau-bimes.be/

http://www.souffriau-bimes.be/CVcomplet98.htm

http://www.metaphon.be/index.php?page=arsene-souffriau

http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/souffriau.arsene.html

http://www.borguez.com/uabab/?cat=203

http://music.aol.com/song/trois-etudes-pour-maldoror-1/16037752

http://holywarbles.blogspot.com/2011/02/arsene-souffriau-experiences-bimes-3xlp.html

http://www.flandersmusic.be/search_index.php?Search=A.+Souffriau&submit.x=16&submit.y=7

backup-copy: Arsene.Souffriau.pdf

2. Piotr Lachert

Piotr Lachert talks about several of his works, beginning with the ballet ‘ON, pour piano préparé’ (1970) and including, for instance,
‘ULICA MILA’ pour chœur a capella (1970), ‘SIX SKETCHES’ pour violon et piano (1971), ‘LUDWIG VAN’ pour piano et trois postes de radio (1972), ‘PRELUDE ET FUGUE EN SOL’ pour public et tape delay system (1974), ‘DENTIST MUSIC, AC 1289 H2015 N34358’ pour un interprete et bande magnetique (1976), ‘A LA POURSUITE DU SON’ pour gamelang, public et tape delay system (1976), ‘EPIPHANIA’ animation pour public (1976), ‘EROTIC MUSIC’, opéra inacheve (1977-?), ‘PLAN POL K’ for tape, public and delay system (1981), ‘UNA MOGLIE, UN’AMANTE’ per tuba contrebasso, un dancatore o un attore (1980), ‘NYOKA YA MAYI’ (1982) and ‘INTRODUCTION, 11 TABLEAUX ET CODA’ pour acteur et piano (1983).

links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Lachert

http://www.lachertfoundation.eu/recordings.html

http://www.lachertfoundation.eu/bio.html

http://www.lachertfoundation.eu/writings.html

backup-copy: Piotr.Lachert.pdf

3. Frederic Nyst

In his article about “Le nombre et les eaux”, Frederic Nyst speaks, amongst other things, about “transformations des segments en blocs sonores”, “determination des formes de periodes”, “les enveloppes” and “sons tenus” (pp.45-47).

links:

http://patrick.lenfant1.free.fr/ousonmupo_ousonmupiens.html

http://patrick.lenfant1.free.fr/biographies/ousonmupo_biographie_frederic_nyst.pdf

http://www.teatrodelaluna.com/mediafiles/00000000000000000000000000000045-ES-1.pdf

http://www.firstcontemporaryart.com/artist/Pablo~Palazuelo

http://www.march.es/arte/coleccion/obras/palazuelo.asp

http://www.museopatioherreriano.org/MuseoPatioHerreriano/coleccion/
listado_de_autores/searchObra/114/315/

http://www.artclair.com/jda/archives/docs_article/00573/processus-harmoniques.php

http://www2.cfwb.be/lartmeme/no009/page1.htm

backup-copy: Frederic.Nyst.pdf

4. André Riotte

In his contribution to DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, TOME I: MUSIQUES entitled “Mise au point en forme de glossaire”, André Riotte has entries on such terms respectively concepts as
ALGORITHME
ANAMORPHOSE
CATASTROPHE
CONGRUENCE
CONTINU
CONTRADICTION
DETERMINISME
ECHELLE
ENSEMBLES (THEORIE DES)
ESPACE-TEMPS
FORMALISATION
IMPROVISATION
MODELE
NOMBRE
NOYAU
ŒUVRE OUVERTE
ORDRE (RELATION D’)
PROFIL
RESIDUS (CLASSE DE)
RYTHME
SILENCE
TIMBRE

Talking about CONTRADICTION, he writes:
“Un formalisme n’est utile que dans la mesure où il est efficace, c’est-a-dire s’il libère notre imagination en la canalisant.
S’il l’entrave, abandonnons-le bien vite.
Je reste donc à l’écoute de toute voie intuitive qui, contredisant un formalisme, le rendra caduc ou sujet à réajustement.”(p.70)

Regarding ESPACE-TEMPS, he begins by saying,
“En tant qu’évènement concret, le phénomène sonore plonge au sein même de l’espace-temps, puisqu’il est une vibration ondulatoire du milieu qui le propage.
Il se disperse à partir de sa source dans le volume d’espace-temps accessible compte tenu des déperditions d’énergie.”(p.72)

After saying something more on this subject, Riotte adds an interesting thought. He writes,
“Une image nous aidera à distinguer espace-temps intérieur, espace-temps virtuel et espace-temps réel: l’espace-temps intérieur habitait Beethoven sourd, et en fixant sous forme des partitions les trajets imaginés dans cet espace-temps, il en spécificiait les dimensions virtuelles, alors que leur actualisation dans l’espace-temps réel lui était inaccessible.” (p.172)

links:

http://www.andreriotte.org/english/index.htm

http://www.andreriotte.org/english/oeuvre/index.htm

http://www.andreriotte.org/english/notes/index.htm

http://www.andreriotte.org/english/publications/index.htm

backup-copy: Andre.Riotte.pdf

5. Baudouin Oosterlynck

In his article entitles “SON-OR-ITE”, Baudouin Oosterlynck
gives us texts accompanied by drawings that concern the following compositions:
- ENVELOPPE ou VÊTEMENT. (opus 34, Oct.-Nov. 1978)
- MINIATURES IN SITU (opus 35 bis – opus 47, 1979/January 1983)
- ETUDES POUR PLANS ET ESPACE (opus 36, 1979-80)
- JEUX ET RESONANCES (opus 37, April-May-June 1981)
- OBSERVATIONS ACOUSTIQUES (opus 38, July 1981)
- POUR INSTHAL (opus 39, Feb.-May 1982)
- SURFACE pour PNT Tienen (opus 40, Feb. 1982)
- BALAYAGE STABLE (opus 45 - installation, Dec. 1982)
- POUR SPEELHOVEN (opus 49, March-Sept.1983)
- SQUELETTE (opus project 51, May 4. 1983)

Regarding the ETUDES POIR PLANS ET ESPACE, a composition for a billard table, he writes a text than begins:

LE BILLARD EST A L’HORIZONTALE
CE QUE
LE NUAGE EST A L’ESPACE
LA PHASE EST AU SON
CE QUE
L’ESPACE EST A L’HORIZONTALE
LE DOMAINE DE LA MARIEE ET CELUI DU CELIBATAIRE
[…]
(p.89)

Baudouin Oosterlynck, “SON-OR-ITE”, in: A. Souffriau et al., Documenta Belgicae, T. I : Musique, n.p. (PMA-Editions) 1981, pp. 83-103

links:

http://www.academieroyale.be/n90/Baudouin.Oosterlynck

http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=heud6mcus4&lg=fr&pag=690
&tab=2&rec=90&frm=0&par=secorig593&id=5138&flux=724791

http://www2.academieroyale.be/academie/documents/OOSTERLYNCK2008811.pdf

http://www.baudouinoosterlynck.be/

http://www.baudouinoosterlynck.be/bio.htm

http://www.baudouinoosterlynck.be/agenda.htm

http://www.baudouinoosterlynck.be/biblio.htm

http://www.users.skynet.be/p-art/p-artweb

www.metaphon.be

backup-copy: Baudouin.Oosterlynck.pdf

6. Robert Fesler

Pretty much at the beginning of the text that Robert Fesler contributed, we find a confession. He writes,
“[…] en dehors d’un curiosité pour les musiques contemporaines et orientales, rien ne me destinait à faire de la musique”.(p.106)

When he begins the first of two main parts of this text written for DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, TOME I: MUSIQUES, he adds a motto: “Le hazard n’existe pas”. (p.108)
He then goes on to quote Nietzsche:
“Je vous le dis: « Il faut encore porter en soi le chaos, pour être capable d’enfanter une étoile dansante » […].” (p.108)

One of his first performed works was ‘Les Oiseaux mécaniques’ (ballet, dédie à M. Bejart).

It was followed by such works as
‘Je ne retournerai jamais à Tournai ou Guernica (II)’,
‘Mao’, ‘Une Apocalypse de Jean’, ‘La Lettre d’Hadrian à Marc Aurel’ (dédie à Marguerite Yourcenar), and ‘Aurora Resurgens’ (dédie à J. Bourgeois). (p.111)

In a second part of his contribution to DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, t.I: MUSIQUES, Fesler remembers among other things a dream he has had in late nineteen-eighty.
This dream ‘told’ him:
“Si tu ne trouves pas la solution de la Création, tu ne pourras plus vivre ni mourir.” (p.112)
It was the poem and the musical composition ‘Le Rêve de la Création’ which sprang from it. A work which he then goes on to discuss in great detail. (pp.112f.)

links:

http://www.musiques-recherches.be/agenda_event.php?lng=fr&id=191

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Robert+Fesler

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Untitled/release/786425

backup-copy: Robert.Fesler.pdf

7. Dominique Lawalree

“[L]es nombres silences et les longues résonances qu l’on rencontre souvent dans ma musique pour piano sont comme des fenêtres ouvertes sur le monde extérieur”,
Dominique Lawalree notes and then goes on to discuss such works as GUERNICA, completed in 1973, and OMBRES… LUMIERE !, accomplished in 1978, but also MUSIQUE POUR LA PAIX (ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?) which was written in 1982 - at a time, that is when the arms race was stepped up and people in Europe were beginning once more to show their concern. (pp.130f.)

links:

http://www.newconsonantmusic.com/composers/lawalree_dominique.php

http://www.matrix-new-music.be/en/composer/lawalree-dominique-1954

http://www.exlibris.ch/musik/cd/dominique-lawalr%C3%A9e/12-m-ditations-eucharistiques/?id=3560530113726

http://www.amazon.de/Pr%C3%A9ludes-au-Silence-Lawalree-Dominique/dp/B000MTP7DO

backup-copy: Dominique.Lawalree.pdf

8. Annette Vande Gorne

Annette Vande Gorne refers to “les chemins d’espace / couleur”, to “Transmutations de la nature on Métamorphoses d’Orphée”, to “l’autre temps” and to “son et silence”.
In the chapter on “L’autre temps”, she quotes Giséle Brelet, Le temps musical, tome 2: La forme musicale (Paris 1949) as saying:
“L’activité la plus belle est celle qui ne sait pas complètement d’avance où il va, celle qui s’abandonne à elle-même […]”(p.148)

Among the thinkers she relates to are Roger Garaudy to whose book Comment l’homme devint humain (Paris 1978) she expressly refers, and Chang Chung-Yuan, the author of Le Monde du Tao. Créativité et Taoïsme (Paris 1971).

But also Michel Chion whose various books on electroacustic music she quotes from, and Pierre Schaeffer who has written extensively on musique concrète.

Touching briefly her chapter on “Son et Silence”, I would like to single out a quotation she owes to Toru Takemitsu, a musician I greatly admire. She quotes him as saying,
“Je voudrais atteindre un son aussi intense que le silence… car faire vivre le vide du silence, c’est faire vivre l’infinité des sons.” (p.149)

links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Vande_Gorne

http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/vandegorne_an/

http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/vandegorne_an/discog/

backup-copy: A.vande.Gorne.pdf

* * *

DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, VOLUME II: MUSIC
is the title of the second book assembling texts of contemporary experimental and avant-garde composers from Belgium. It was published in English in 1985 by PMA-Co-editions. It contains texts by seven Belgian composers. Again, the publication was made possible at the time thanks to the initiative of the composer and sound artist Baudouin Oosterlynck.***

The composers who contributed texts are Paul Adriaenssens, Boudewijn Buckinx, George de Decker, Joris de Laet, Yves Knockaert, Baudouin Oosterlynck and Fanny Tran.

1. Paul Adriaenssens

“Paul J. Adriaenssens is a Belgian experimental composer born in Antwerp in 1952. Since 1975 he was, for 7 years, a co-operator of the Studio for Experimental Music and a member of the SEM-ensemble.
Since 1977, he is interested in electronic sound generation.
He has performed works for acoustic and electronic instruments with visual analogies, both in Belgium and abroad.”

Rather than summing things up, I want to begin here with a few quotes from Adriaenssens’ text intriguingly entitled “A Short Walk with Paul J.”.

One quote, the one I want to start with, refers to the author, the artist (the composer, in this case), as recipient: this author, although he is the creator of a work and as such closely involved, can be a “detached” recipient; he can listen to his music as if it was written by somebody else.
“A composer is also a detached listener to his own music.” (p.13) Yes, a necessary reminder. But what does it involve? Perhaps a distance, between the author and his work. A certain time that has elapsed? A soberness, different from the enthusiasm or elation that is felt at the moment when the work has just been completet?

The next quote reminds me of Agnes Varda’s portrayal (in the film ‘Kungfu Master’…) of a teenage boy in front of a machine that lets him react to the possibilities offered by a video game. The filmmaker does not leave us in doubt about one thing: It is not a stupid, merely reactive way of wasting one’s time; it demands a new sensibility and intelligence of the boy, something in which he surpasses many members of an older generation who derisively look down on such activity, misjudging the extent to which it demands a quick, awake mind and an enormous coordination of eye, mind, hands, the entire body.
Adriaenssens draws a parallel between the options offered by a video game (which always entail something, whether foreseen or not) and the options open to composers which also entail something (whether foreseen or not?). This is plausible. Contemporary composition very often relies on this or that mathematical approach; mathematical models and series also underpin the electronic machines that let us play video games, and they underpin the games as such. There are limits of course, to the attempted comparison: composing isn’t a machine’s ‘activity’ or a response to an unstoppable machine’s program: It is a human activity that presupposes and thus includes freedom. Adriaenssens puts it like this:

“There are video games these days that allow the player to interfere with the course of events in such a way that he creates his own reality bearing all the consequences of his subsequent choices. Each turn of the story is player-induced. Normally he is expected to play a game to the end. Here the comparison fails. A composer can reset – soft (slight changes afterward) or hard (waste basket) – at any given moment and start anew. Lots of good times guaranteed.” (p.13)

There are other interesting and even inspiring comments by this composer. Isn’t it indiative of a certain tendency towards ‘minimalism’, a certain attention paid to ‘minute changes’ how he refers to Huxley? We are reminded that
“Huxley says shades of green in the foliage are much more esthetically impressive to look at than the flashiness of multicolored flowers. But he did need mescaline to find out.
I suppose that being born Japanese may be of help to achieve a similar effect.” (p.14) I’m not convinced of the hypothesis that people, including Huxley, cannot ‘dig’ the varieties of green observable when we look into the treetop, its foliage, a lot more than ‘flashy flowers’ unless they take mescaline or other drugs. I am thankful, on the other hand, for Adriaenssen’s reference to specific socio-cultural dispositions that affect our perception.

Perhaps the following quote is pretty indicative of the composer’s stance; it lets me marvel how humorous and as the same time serious the music composed by Adriaenssens is. For he writes:

“Being serious does not mean bein humourless. Even less is the opposite true.” (p.14)

And how about the following quote, concerned with time and the length of composed works? The relativity of time was a theme of Einstein, time as a psychological reality interested Bergson. Time of course is structurally important to all the performing arts: music, the theater, film, performances. And to literature, because to read (silently or “out loud”) is a process unfolding in time, and the reader or performer of music, the actor appearing in a play as well as – in all these cases - the listener are always active (as players, as listeners) in an uninterrupted sequence of moments, while each of them is defined as the “presence”; it is always the moment called “now” which sees them acting, performing a piece of music, reading or listening. And yet, in each of these moments they are not only conscious of what is going on “now”, what they are doing or experiencing “now”. They are also detotalizing what they saw as “the whole piece” in a moment that is “now” already a part of the past. And they are totalizing, in each moment, the “whole” (as it presents itself, up to this point called “now”); a whole that they are allowed to become conscious of in no other way than this: as an uninterrupted sequence of detotalizations and totalizations that ends only at the moment when the entire work has been performed. This of course is true of every work that does not present itself “in one second” (a visual object) but that is rather “realized in time, as a temporal structure.”

Adriaenssens’ reflection on time heads in another drection, not the one indicated above. He muses that “Time is tricky. The more you use up the more it will cost you in conciseness. Sooner or later about all composers are tempted to create the ultimate piece of music: the Twenty Seconds That Say It All. In vain, of course. The result of the attempt, though, may be a lot more interesting than the throw at the Fifty-five Minutes That Say It All, which, besides being vain, too, may sound a lot more burdening and boring.”(p.14)

For Adriaensssens, the question of time reduces itself, at least in the context of the sentences quoted, to a simply question, however: is it better to be concise, to use little time, to write short works, or not? And if short, how short is – on the other hand – too short, perhaps? And is the long piece lacking stringency? We have often witnessed this in the case of films: that the 60-minute or 80-minute films of filmmakers we cherish are saying so much, in a beautiful way, while certain expensively produced ‘blockbusters’ that take two or two-and-a-half hours are simply boring. In that sense, it is easy to understand Adriaenssens. But still, here he seems a bit abstract, a bit too clever; it sounds like a rather abstract consideration and I have no doubt that great music which takes 55 minutes or more to perform does exist. Perhaps the whole idea of writing “the ultimate piece…that says it all” is a little odd; the idea of young people perhaps who have, as yet, little to say in a concrete way but fantastic ideas about creating great works and becoming famous.

I add a few more quotes that I think are meaningful enough to warrant inclusion.

“I sometimes think that everything which does not meet with your appreciation is something you miss some how.”(p.15)

This is obviously directed to the reader, to the public. A very clear formulation of an important insight: it should, in a way, arouse our suspicion if works offer no resistance, if it is too easy to appreciate them. And the reverse conclusion seems to be as valid, in many cases: What you fail to see, to recognize, what you don’t notice but miss, is perhaps at the root of that other irritation which lets many of us conclude frequently that we don’t particulary appreciate a work.

The following quote is also thought-provoking:
“I refuse to think of myself as someone with original ideas, also in musical terms. To all supposedly original thinkers, composers in particular: there is a high probability that someone somewhere had the same thought – surely within the limits of their specific hardware – […]” (p.15)

The first sentence of the paragraph quoted comes close to the position of Bertolt Brecht. It is a materialistic proposition which critiques and thus reduces the almost exclusive importance attributed by idealistic thinkers to a certain type, the so-called genius. Creative people do not start from nil, they inherit what is available to them and directly or indirectly, active reception processes link every composer, dramatist, writer, visual artist and so on to the cultural history and cultural knowledge of his society, if not of other societies, as well. The hypothesis that “someone somewhere (another ‘genius’?) had the same idea” is of course a bit naïve, it is again reducing the conditions from which the creative act springs to something highly individual if not individualistic, turning a blind eye to everything the creative individual draws on.

I’ll wrap up this part on Adriaessens by including one more quote, a reflection of medieval music. This contemporary composer writes, “I have just done wrong to the Middle Ages. In order to make music of such simplicity, straightforwardness and yet soothing subtlety, these people cannot have been the semi-ogres we are constantly made to believe them to have been. Less so after the First Islamic Cultural Injection.”(p.15)

I wouldn’t like this observation so much if it was just something about a so-called prejudice in us, concerning the “Dark Ages” and “semi-ogres.” It’s not a prejudice anymore that a lot of people would take serious. It is of course nice that Adriaensssens reminds us of Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and others that medieval Christian culture owed so much to. But the main thing is of course that he recognizes both the specificity of medieval music: its beautiful simplicity, its ‘soothing subtlety’, and its ‘straightforwardness’. The latter of course had a lot to do with the fact that it was also functional, whether in praise of God [in the case of Gregorian chorals etc.] or in praise of noble women
[the troubadours; the Minnesänger]). I am taken in by what Adriaenssens writes because, between the lines, I sense his longing to capture or rather, create, in a contemporary way, with contemporary musical means, a ‘simplicity’ of similar intensity if not beauty, while perhaps also accomplishing a ‘subtlety’ that does not exclude ‘purpose’,’engagement’ or other types of ‘functionality.’

II.

The text “A Short Walk with Paul J.” includes a passage in which Adriaenssens refers to a composition entitled “A Short Walk with Karl F.” It deserves to be quoted in full:

Paul Adriaenssens

A SHORT WALK WITH KARL F.

for six electronic sources (1979)

A study for five volume controllable tone generators or synthesizers and one noise generator with filter or a sixth synthesizer.
The music is marked by the extreme austerity of the sound material which is consequently arranged by a sole principle: for every single parameter (time - frequency - volume - timbre - density) a central norm is postulated from which there can be a deviation with a precise tolerance. As the piece proceeds the tolerance narrows per unit of sixty seconds. Thus all parameters zero in around the central norm during the last minute.
Continuously filtered noise – one five minute high pass envelope – contrasts with the discontinuous evolution of the tone material. The entire arranging principle is derived from the statistical particularities of the widely applicable bell shaped Gauss function (named after its discoverer, the 19th century German mathematician Karl F. Gauss).
The piece should become the central fragment of a seven part composition called ‘Requiem for an Achondroplastic Dwarf’, seven five minute pieces on similar rigorous bases.” (p.20)

III.

Another composition referred to by the composer in text “A Short Walk with Paul J.” is entitled “Steps” It also deserves to be quoted in full:

Paul Adriaenssens

STEPS
(1981)

A four part study in audiovisual analogies for flute, sequencer, controlled synthesizer and slides. Sixteen minutes of slowly evolving very limited musical material with matching electronics and puctures of geometric bodies.
On each level (acoustic - electronic - visual) a number of parameters
1. stay constant throughout all four parts
2. stay constant only within each part, creating a discontinuous evolution with four-minute steps
3. vary within each part
4. vary throughout all four parts.
There are nowhere any deliberately synchronic events or interactions, only parallel, simultaneous evolutions.
(p.20)

Paul Adriaennssens, “A Short Walk with Paul J.”, in: Documenta Belgicae, vol. II: Music. [Archennes,] PMA-Co-editions, 1985, pp.4-31

links:

http://www.flandersmusic.be/identity.php?ID=135591

http://sites.google.com/site/pauladriaenssensbio/bio

backup-copy: Adriaenssens.pdf

2. Boudewijn Buckinx

Thanks to Boudewijn Buckinx’ contribution to Vol. II: Music, we learn that his ‘Symphonic Poem’ consists of seven “nearly identical pictures, wonderfully realized by Jan Hoet, with sound-making objects.” (p.45)

Today, Jan Hoet is of course known above all as the person responsible for a ‘Documenta’ exhibition in Kassel (Germany) that took place a couple of years ago.

Boudewijn Buckinx’ interest in cooperating with people involved in visual arts, either as curators or visual or else, performance artists, is not untypical of contemporary composers. Bernd Franke, for instance, has sought inspiration through confrontation with modern visual art works.

As for his Buckinx, his conceptional closeness to or inspitration by modern visual art also shows in the title of a work like ‘Sinfonia a quattro velocipedi’. Buckins notes that it was “written for four bicycles. They were bisected and used as music instruments”. (p.45)

The hilarious and often tongue-in-cheek way dadaists and pop artists appropriated every-day objects comes to mind. To use parts of a bike as musical instruments or rather, sources of sound(s), is of course both one of the characteristics of arte povera and in line with contemporary avant-gardism in the field of music. Atypical sources of sound have the effect that such musical compositions are close to ‘sound art’ (Klangkunst). Satie, Cage and others paved the way or opened the ‘gates’ to such experimentation, and a readiness of certain composers to discover sound material previously shunned or despised as ‘non-musical’ soon ensued.
Of course, dodecaphonic music and the integration of dissonance were important stepping stones on the way to the prepared piano, plucking the strings of the piano, and later on, using metal pipes of a bicycle frame and similar objects for ‘sound discovery’.

From 1977 to 1979, Buckinx “set to music the complete travel sketches of Basho” (p.46). It is perhaps indicative of a symptomatic interest in East Asian culture (Zen philosophy, Taoism, Classical Chinese and Japanese poetry etc.) that is widespread among artists. John Cage is a relatively early example.

The tendency to seek inspiration in ancient, mythical texts like the Tibetan Book of the Death or the Egyptian Book of the Death is very much in line with a certain modernist longing for the dark and distant, in fact mirroring a penchant for the irrational, perhaps as an anti-dote to modern ‘instrumental reason’ (Max Weber) and thus as a reaction to that mentality which at present is still structurally anchored in the socio-psychological and socio-economic relations typical of a profit-oriented, market-driven economy.

The composer Boudewijn Buckinx considers his composition entitled ‘RA’, based on the Egyptian Book of the Dead, “as one of [his] more important works.” (p.46)

B. Buckinx, in: Documenta Belgicae, vol. II: Music. [Archennes,] PMA-Co-editions, 1985, pp.32-50

links:

http://users.telenet.be/guidodeleeuw/bb/

http://users.telenet.be/guidodeleeuw/bb/proj.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudewijn_Buckinx

backup-copy: Buckinx.pdf

3. George de Decker

In a Foreword to his text, George de Decker takes a Cartesian stance. Almost like Descartes, he says,
“I write music, therefore I am.
The writing of music, the impulse to do it, comes from somewhere.
I think of it every day, as a sort og daily hygiene of the consciousness: why do I write music? for whom?”

One of de Decker’s first compositions, maybe the first, done in 1974, was for alto and piano. It was entitled ‘Aufklaerung’ and the text was by Karel Jonckheere.

From here on, we discover two ‘philosophical’ trends in his œuvre. At least judgin by the titles he chooses, something of the sort seems to be virulent in his mind.

There are titles that remain – though not exactly faithful to the heritage alluded to by a work like ‘Aufklaerung’ – at least rather modern and, in an ostentative way, ‘Western’, if not ‘American’: I’ll come to them later.
And there are the darker, strange and foreign-sounding titles, perhaps indicative of the turn to Buddhism etc. already witnessed with Cage, then with poets like Gary Snyder, Alan Ginsberg, Anne Waldman etc. (and underpinned by Suzuki, A. Watts etc. in a ‘theoretical’ way). It is a turn quite frequently observed with composers and visual artists in the second half of the 20th and in the early 21st century. But in many respects, it is the same modern subjectivism and idealism if not, in a certain sense and in some respects, irrationalism, that was already alive in German expressionism, in Artaud, perhaps generally in Surrealism which also looked longingly to exotic places and cultures far away, geographically and mentally, thus eager to challenge reason (because it was ‘Western reason’ and the reason at the root of the absurdly irrational First World War).

In 1975, de Decker did ‘Khanda’ for piano/4 hands, in 1979 ‘Feng’ for flute (‘feng’ is also the Chinese character for ‘wind’), in 1981 ‘La vision du vide’ for guitar, and in 1983 ‘Hakanai’ for tape. (pp.80f.)

While the titles of these last four compositions point to an interest in Far Eastern philosophy and perhaps music, other works by George de Decker reveal an affinity to dada and pop-art. Take for instance the title of the following work: ‘Live like pigs’ (theatre music). Or another composition: ‘C’est ainsi que l’on meurt now-a-days à Hollywood’ for piano and text (1980). The text in this case was by Paul Pourveur.

‘Rest in piece’ [sic] for soprano, piano, reciter, tape, guitar, bassclarinet and double bass, text again by Paul Pourveur, was done in the following year (1981). The tongue-in-cheek way the composer plays with words, replacing peace by piece, may seem merely amusing. But there is a serious note present in the title. RIP (rest in piece) is written in grave sites. The piece is the musical piece, the composition, and to be able to ‘rest’ in it presupposes serenity, confidence, a certain stability. But to ‘fall to pieces’ also means to fall apart, to break, and to rest in a piece can mean ‘to rest in a fragment’, a part rather than the whole. It would be interesting to see whether the ambiguity and polysemie inscribed in the title reflects a musical reality that is in a similar way dense and multifaceted.

‘Turn me inside down if you wish to cry for my mamma!’ for vocalist, dancer, alto saxophone, double windquintet, tape and video was done in 1983. The title is ‘late dadaist’ if not imbued with the spirit of a mocking and sarcastic, more high-brow variety of American pop-culture. And “inside down” of course mutilates a common phrase in purpose. Text and scenario were by Guido de Bruyn who also cooperated when de Decker wrote the music for ‘White Suited Men in a Park’, a piece for piano 4 hands seen by the composer as a tribute to Méliès.

This piece (‘White Suited Men in a Park’) was done in 1984; a year before de Deckers text appeared in DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, vol. II: MUSIC.
Seeing the need of documenting the exchange of ideas with De Bruyn, de Decker includes a letter written to him by De Bruyn at the time.

Guido De Bruyn wrote,
“[…]”
“(2) […] I suggest that we use that tape as the basis for the composition, which we will then name after Lumière’s film ‘White suited Men in a Park’, O.K.? I also fell in love with it straight away because it is literally, a unique sound, produced by a unique machine: a punch printer designed by a certain Mr. Brown of the British Film Institute. We’ll mention his name in big letters, if it’s alright with you.”
“(3) However, it is true that this choice sets us in a certain direction, and imposes a number of restrictions.
(a) It is the sound of a machine, mechanical, with a distinct rattle and squeak. Therefore we will have to choose from the mechanical sound jargon (unless you think we could improvise on it with a soprano!)
(b) Choosing this sound as a basis not only determines the choice, but also the rhythm of other sounds. There are two possibilities: either we use the basis sound in a continuous rhythm (in which case it will become just another repetitive composition, even though it uses real sounds), or we cut the basic tape in a mathematical structure with pauses in between (pauses which can sometimes be filled with other sounds, or sometimes be left in silence). I choose the latter option, because repetitive music is beginning to exhaust its own repetitiveness. What do you think?
(4) Fine, I suggest that we first look for a schedule, a rhythmic pattern and then in function of that pattern, look for sounds of different timbre; record, assemble, filter and mix them, and then use these sounds as harmonics on top of the basic tone. What do you think of this first group?
Qua mixing/balance the basic sound dominates, at least in this first group. Afterwards it can serve as pulsing background on which legato sounds can grow in contrast to the staccato basic tape. Am I rushing things?’
(5) And now for something completely different. […]” (p.64f.)

George de Decker then wrote the following text regarding
White-Suited Men in A Park:

“White Suited Men in a Park

when the sun sets
when the wind caresses me,
I think of the dead
Then
I see them
Those
I see
All those
White Suited men
In a park.

Annabel Nonsuch”

This name was suggested jokingly by him as his pseudonym.

George de Decker added:
“Isn’t the punch printer made of metal and wood? This can provide a few basic things for the basis of the composition.
- The sound of metal (objects and mechanical)
- The sound of wood
- rhythmic sound
- metre.” (p.66)

I think the quoted texts give a pretty good first impression of the kind of considerations that influenced the composer and the writer of the scenario (who obviously was in on certain strategies of the composer) in the initial stage of their collaboration regarding ‘White Suited Men in a Park’.

George de Decker, “To write is to rewrite”, in: Documenta Belgicae, vol. II: Music. [Archennes,] PMA-Co-editions, 1985, pp.52-81

links:

http://www.georgededecker.be/

http://users.skynet.be/fa841487/files/recordingsframe.htm

http://users.skynet.be/fa841487/files/cvmusicframe.htm

backup-copy: G.deDecker.pdf

4. Joris de Laet

[My notes regarding Joris de Laet are missing; have been lost, it seems. I apologize to Joris de Laet for this involuntary omission. - AW]

links:

http://www.flandersmusic.be/identity.php?ID=134293

http://www.flandersmusic.be/search_index.php?Search=Joris+de+Laet&submit.x=22&submit.y=3

http://jorisdelaet.magix.net

http://jorisdelaet.magix.net/website/music_1970_1980_1.1.html

http://jorisdelaet.magix.net/website/music_1970_1980_1.1.html#3

backup-copy: Joris.de.Laet.pdf

5. Yves Knockaert

Among his early compositions, Yves Knockaert mentions
‘Afraid of silence’ for flutes, 2 guitar and piano (1983),
‘Groepcompositie met toevalselementen’ for a free number of musicians (1983), the series ‘Reductions’ I-IV, for different groups of instruments (1984) and ‘Saxteen’ for saxophone and tape (1984).

In 1983, he wrote a text entitled ‘1983: Everybody Can Compose’. In this text he stated that “Everybody can compose starting from verbally formulated rules of the game.” He discussed here his ‘Group Composition with Chance Elements’ written for one of the workshops of the 3rd Week of New Music in Bruges in Oct. 1983.

For the performance of this composition, Knockaert gave the following instructions:

“a group of persons, musicians or non-musicians, comes together to produce and to perform a piece of music. Nothing has been determined in advance. Nobody is going to press his personal taste or his esthetic preference upon the composition. By way of a series of manipulations, led by chance, the composition will grow.
The group accepts chance, offering a certain possibility, and chooses this out of the indeterminateness of the multitude of possibilities. Thus arise successions of sounds, which were not premeditated by a composer or a cooperating group. On the contrary, the resulting sound presents a series of ideas to the musicians, which they could never have found on their own.
The sounds, born of chance, create creativity.” (p.128)

Commenting on ‘987-Reduction I’ for flute, oboe, clarinet and piano, Yves Knockaert writes that in this work, “reduction starts from a harmonic basis: the Fibunacci-numbers. Not only the fact that two following Fibunacci-numbers approximate the proportion of the golden section, but also the fact that the piano in its total range of 88 keys or half steps is nearly a Fibunacci-number, i.e. 89, induces us to use this series of numbers as a reduction standard.
The title ‘987’ is autobiographic. While composing I extended the Fibunacci series further than one usually does. Thus I came to 89 - 144 - 233 - 377 - 610 - 987. 987 was my registration […] number […] in the primary school. The number that made me […] identifiable, 987, was a Fibunacci-number. Moreover this number as a succession of numbers is very harmonic 9 - 8 - 7, or 8, a Fibunacci-number + 1 and - 1. In this form 9 - 8 - 7 the number becomes a determination of propositions in section M of the work […].
Before the Fibunacci-reductions we have the restrictions by the choice of instruments: a restriction to woodwinds and piano; a range limitation to the range of these instruments.” (p.116)

Knockaert continues:
“Add to this a deliberate ‘natural’ use of the instruments: multiphonics, trills and Flatterzunge [trembling tongue] on the winds are seldom used; only the keys are being used while playing the piano.
With regard to pitch the following reduction series are applied: the Fibunacci-series and the five series derived from it.
These deviations are tolerated because the range of the piano, i.e. 88 half steps, already differ[s] from the Fibunacci-number 89, as mentioned before, and since during the elaboration of the composition the idea of total unity, which could be called here a synonym for harmonic unity, had to be abandoned. The five added series become reduction principles with derivation-deviations from the Fibunacci-series.” (p.117)

Knockaert then gives in detail the series,
among them the 2nd one, derived from I, used by Stockhausen in ‘Klavierstück IX’: 1 - 3 - 6 - 11 - 19 - 32 - 33 - 53 - 87. (p.117)

He continues:
“The structure of ‘987’ can roughly be outlined as follows:
1st part: sections A-H more solo performance than ensemble playing by the diverse instruments. At no moment is a reduction conspicuous. […]
2nd part: sections I-N: the sound opposes a first reduction attempt by counteracting every reduction and by stressing the independence of each instrument in its complete, unreduced range. At the same time a relative unity comes into being when the instruments oppose collectively the reduction power (section M). An impulsive moment of unity follows (section N). This, however, cannot be sustained and is immediately broken off, resulting in an absence of every reduction (section O).
3rd part: sections O-T: starting from O the non-unity of section T is developed by a gradually increasing reduction. The impossibility of complete control or of total unity is an enriching realization which is fully accepted.” (p.118)

Yves Knockaert, “1984-1983”, in: Documenta Belgicae, vol. II: Music. [Archennes,] PMA-Co-editions, 1985, pp.110-133

links:

http://www.flandersmusic.be/search_index.php?Search=Yves+Knockaert&submit.x=28&submit.y=4

http://www.orpheusinstituut.be/en/publications/order-disorder

http://www.musiktexte.de/contents/en-us/d281.html

http://www.sheerpluck.de/composition-54721-11987-Yves-Knockaert-Afraid-of-Silence.htm

backup-copy: Yves.Knockaert.pdf

6. Baudouin Oosterlynck

In his reflections entitled “From Solitude to Accompanied Monody”, Baudouin Oosterlynck tells us how he “came to the idea of the sound ‘object’” (p.136).

Tracing the route to this discovery, he starts with his early “awareness of timing” as a child. He then dwells upon the discovery of sounds, in fact, of the “mystery of everyday sound” that lead him to “penetrate the substance of sound” and to “feel the relationship between time and space.”(p.135)

We become exposed to the fact that he had been observing “the disposition of sounds and started to listen to paradoxical settings, acoustical phenomena and the position of sounds in relation to the body”.(p.136)

We learn that Baudouin Oosterlynck “wanted not only to produce a sound from a point source and make it travel a given course” but he also “wanted it to travel whilst leaving a permanent sound trace.” And this “in the same way” as if one is “feeling the sensation of the sound traced by writing […].” (p.136)

It was in 1978 that he began to put the aims and concerns that were implicit in his search, a search focused on the idea of a sound object, “into practice”. And this in the form of musical performances.

In hindsight, he notes that “thinking about the pieces” realized between 1978 and 1985, “I have established that yet again it’s the relationship with time which remains fundamental to all this.

Before 1978, this was emphasized sufficiently to be obvious. My pieces were always very slow, very poor [in the sense of arte povera], quite minimal. Very intricate. They underlines the duration of the piece. […]”

In 1978, Baudouin Oosterlynck was finally turning to a “new relationship with time” that surfaced in the “production of the musical object”. It implied a new way of composing and performing where the “rendering of the sound depends on a place and a body which is visiting it.”
And it brought about the “integration” of time “with a space and a site”.

For Baudouin Oosterlynck, it was a “passage from solitude to accompanied solitude” – or from “solitude to accompanied monody.”

“From Solitude to Accompanied Monody”, the text contributed by Baudouin Osterlynck to DOCUMENTA BELGICAE, VOL.II: MUSIC, also contains descriptive notes on “sound objects” created by this sound artist. For instance this one:

Baudouin Oosterlynck

PYRAMIDS
Opus 34 bis (Dec. 1978)

Nine glass pyramids 15 cm high and hinged on one side guard a beautiful sound within, just as the pyramids guard the pharaohs.
[In order] To listen, the visitor opens the hinged side, and shuts it. When all the pyramids are opened up, there should be a warm sound. Each sound welcomes the listener as if to share its place. (The colour blue attracts the spectator. The sounds are chosen for the same reason.) You can put them close to each other or spaced apart. You cannot in any instance see what produces the sounds. Just like you, transparent and waiting for a visitor.
(p.139)

Another interesting example I want to quote in full is this text on opus 55, ‘Listen Closely’:

Baudouin Oosterlynck

              LISTEN CLOSELY
                                              Opus 55, Sept. 1983
                                              Variation 2: Feb. 1984

This variation – ‘Stars and Accident’ – is a homage to Roges La Croix d’Avennes.
In a place where you have come back to look at things, listen to a pane of glass mysteriously fed by a hidden apparatus (prototype by R. Fesler), which is tranmitting sound vibrations to a flat surface.
To hear properly, you have to press the plane of glass against your ear. The sounds resemble those produced by crystal glasses, window panes, knitting needles and piano chords.
What interests me here is that you listen through something which you look through and that you have to bend over and listen carefully.
(p.150)

It is perhaps appropriate to conclude this brief glance at the work of the experimental composer and sound artist Baudouin Oosterlynck by quoting from “MUSIC?”.

Baudouin Oosterlynck

MUSIC?

When it comes down to it
we are talking about evidence of a personal awareness,
one’s surroundings and
the echo of divine variations.

Fruit is only ripe once, the moment it falls.

[…]

(p.154)

Baudouin Oosterlynck, “From Solitude to Accompanied Monody”, in: Documenta Belgicae, vol. II: Music. [Archennes,] PMA-Co-editions, 1985, pp.134-154 [The text was translated into English by Roland Tarr]

links:

http://www.art-in-society.de/AS8/BaudouinOosterlynck.html

7. Fanny Tran

Born in Uccle, a Brussels suburb, in 1949, Fanny Tran encountered the composer Henri Pousseur when she was still rather young, As she admits, he “had a major influence” on her, especially “though his social analysis of music as it is tied to the environment where it is produced.” (p. 159)

Fanny Tran studied at the Brussels Conservatoire and graduated from ULB with a master’s degree in musicology.

She attended Henri Pousseur’s composition classes and subsequently lectured on contemporary music at the Liège Conservatoire.

She mentions Claude Albert Coppens, with whom, “for a while,” she “shared the love for the isolated French composer Eric Satie.” Both of them “performed together his four-hands piano piece ‘La Belle Excentrique’.”

Fanny Tran remembers that she has been “playing Satie’s music since 1970, in Belgium […] as well as, more recently, in Europe and the United States.”

For her, playing Satie’s music is not a passive, receptive experience, it is active reception, creative appropriation rather than mere reproduction: “I have always equated playing the piano, both its technique and its literature, with musical creativity,” she notes. Improvisation plays a large role. “I started improvising the first day I touched a piano keyboard […] (p.159)

Looking back at her initiation – or introduction – to the piano, Fanny Tran writes that she remembers how, as a five-year-old girl, she was “given a toy piano” by her grand-parents, and then “a real piano” for her 8th birthday.
“After one year of sight reading (I was 9 years old), I began to compose musical pieces which I proudly submitted to Pierre Bartholomée’s appreciation.
By the age of 14, I became fascinated by the twelve-tone system, atonal, and electronic music. I composed a few pieces in these styles, trying hard to find out on my own the specific theory of these composing techniques.
At seventeen I founded a group of young musicians […]
The ‘Musica Viva’-Group functioned for 3 years, giving several concerts mixing its own compositions with classical pieces. In the middle of the ‘May 1968’ mood, we gave a concert-happening mixing slides and slogans with music from the XIIIth century to contemporary popular songs, including among others, Schönberg, Joan Baez and Berio. For the first floor, I conducted the choir introducing the concert with J.S. Bach’s Choral, ‘Es ist Genug’ [It’s Enough] while sounds and visual displays of bombs and wars evolved to the expression of liberty and peace. Flowers were distributed to the public, which started singing and communicating with us.” (p.160)
It was a remarkable experiment, not only in purely musical terms but also because it broke the barrier between active musicians and a receptive public, provoking the audience to ‘answer’, to ‘communicate’, to ‘co-participate’ in the performance.
Fanny Tran notes that “[i]n that period, the group consisted of about 25 young musicians”; the youngest just 13 and the oldest in their mid-twenties. (p.160)

In the following year (1969), she studied piano at the Liège Conservatoire where her teacher was Marcelle Mercenier. For her it was a fruitful experience, Fanny Tran says, pointing out that it was “really enriching […] to study other people’s musical language and notation” with Marcelle Mercenier. “At that time, she [Mercenier] was playing many new pieces recently written by Boulez, Cage, Pousseur, Boesmans, Berio, Bartholomée a[nd] o[thers], on her concert tours. Being her student, I could read the scores, listen to her playing and rehearsing, and discussing aspects of performance and notion in new piano music.” (pp.160f.)

After graduating from the Brussels Conservatoire in 1975, Fanny Tran received a scholarship that enabled her to continue her studies at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw.

It was during the first three months of her stay there that she met David Pituch, “an American saxophone player and teacher at the Warsaw Academy of Music.” (p.161)

She discovered a remarkable affinity: “Because his goals were similar to mine […] I decided to compose my first piece for him. This piece alludes to the history of Warsaw and to the social troubles that occurred [there] while I composed the piece […]” (p.161)
“[In] December 1980, the troubles in Poland increased. Food became scarce and demonstrations by the illegal workers union ‘Solidarity’ against the lack of democracy extended throughout the whole country.” (p.161)

What she saw as the ‘heroism’ of resistance against the supposedly socialist etatism of the regime fascinated Fanny Tran as much as the “romanticism and its expression” which, she feels, have resulted so often from the Polish “struggle for freedom.”

The experience affected her strongly.

She writes that “[a]mong the different messages I want to express through my music, one is that everyone always remains liable to become a prisoner or a slave, though spiritual servitude should be avoided. This is exactly what the Polish people have given full evidence of during the years 1980-81; they succeeded in keeping their spirit free” and rebellious. (p.162)

In those years, Fanny Tran did not only study composition in Warsaw with Marian Borkowski (p.161), she attended workshops in Aix-en-Provence which enabled her “to work with K. Stockhausen, Y. Xenakis, M. Kagel and L. Berio”.(p.162)

And she also was granted a British Council scholarship that enabled her to study electronic music at the Goldsmith’s College in London with Hugh Davies.

In addition, she was invited as a free visitor for 4 months at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where she was “in charge of piano accompaniment” and, a year later, realized her composition ‘Space Music and Little Space Music for violin’ in 1983.

In 1982, she “toured throughout Belgium with a program dedicated to Satie’s music” and also performed at the Brussels Philharmonic Hall “with people from the groups ‘Logos’ (Ghent) and ‘Inaudible’ (Brussels) […]”(p.162) She comments, “I was suddenly facing a totally free, spontaneous and immediate expression not resorting to any notation or paper media. I began to understand that composing is a static process of dominating time; starting, acceleraring, retaining and stopping.” (pp.162f.)

It is interesting to see how Fanny Tran’s development as a composer has been “subject to changes” when she changed her “environment and way of living” – a fact that did not escape her.

She writes that “[i]t became clear to me that travel generates creativity and requires the ability to invent new, unknown, thus improvised situations; in a similar manner, musical improvisation brings a specific pleasure in creating [and] discovering […] new and unknown sounds, playing with them […] [and] sharing them with other people.”

Such changes, she notes, “create a specific attitude towards life: continuous freshness of invention, of reacting attitudes, spontaneity, immediate response to a given situation or sound, or pattern.” It has become, for her, in a certain sense, “a natural attitude of the improviser.”(p.163)

“Since that moment, the fundamental difference between improvisation and composition became important to me”, she tells us. At the time, she later noted, she “felt as if [her] personality became split between these two ways of expression.” (p.163)

Her piece ‘TUBA mi-RAK-ul.um’ (for tuba and magnetic tape) became “a relevant illustration of the difficult struggle” that she was “facing during that period”. She emphasizes that ‘TUBA mi-RAK-ul.um’ “ provides [the possibility of] a permanent choice”, and thus grants “an alternative to the performer” who can play “written melodies and sounds[,] or improvised fragments suggested by drawings of trains, bicycles, boats, and planes.” (p.163)

She says that “writing this piece allowed me to express my fight against an inward withering, expelling either the joy of freedom or the security of stability. The piece is, for me, supporting a sort of imagery: take a lake: it doesn’t live a long time, unless a source or small river feeds it with fresh water; love, sun and energy-echange generate life […]” (p.163f.)

And she continuous by then asking, “Where are the borders of freedom? […]”

She adds, “[S]ometimes I feel like a prism, reflecting and
propating sounds. Men, women, plants and animals communicate to me the music they emanate; it makes the prism vibrate, as sensitively as crystal does, and produces its own music.
Related to this, TUBA… opens the question of the borders between composing and improvising. The question corresponds to opposite attitudes towards life and music. Because of the way I mix them, their characteristics become prominent and enrich each other, adding a new dialectic to music,” (p.164)

For Fanny Tran, the discovery of these dialectics helped her to see how, in the mid-1980’s, “new contacts, more open, more creative”, were beginning to link “the contemporary arts closer together.” (p.164) It was a “cheerful phenomenon” for her, witnessed “in many countries.” People related “more freely, finding their way to communicate.” Fanny Tran is aware of the fact that for her, “life and music” are closely interrelated, there is a “permanent feed-back, producing my life’s adventure.” (p.164)

In Warswara, in January 1984, she completed the composition of ‘Ties between the Present – Future Constellations’ for piano solo. She remembers the impulse at its root, “This is a tryptich inspired by the Toronto […] Planetarium I visited in March 1983. It is dedicated to my mother’s father, Auguste Bouxain, born in Toronto; he educated me and was the magician of my childhood.
The composition consists of three pieces:
No.1: ‘The travel of the leading star’ uses strings muted by the fingers and develops a selfcreating pattern of given pitches. The pianist improvises an enveloping resonance around them.
No.2: ‘The tie of the open present time’ is completely written. I wrote it immediately after a three minute period of improvisations: I has the idea to fix the sounds like a photographer can fix the images. The notation is very precise and it often uses the play on the strings inside the piano.
No.3: ‘The blue comet travelling through the sand-like time’ is a long and melodic line around which gravitate improvised dissonant patterns.
At the moment I composed this piece, I clearly knew that the whole cosmos was turning itself to a new face, that the time was switching very fast for a new configuration, where the rules of life change, when the ‘speed of life’ becomes different, where freedom and responsibility of the individuals take a new dimensional value in life.” (pp. 176f.)

Besides ‘Ties between the Present – Future Constellations’ for piano solo, other works of Fanny Tran composed in the 1980s are mentioned in the selected list of recordings.

SELECTED LIST OF RECORDINGS BY FANNY TRAN

The selected list of recordings added to Fanny Tran’s article published in DOCUMENTA BELGICAE II: MUSIC in 1985 includes the following works:

‘Warszwawa Echoes’ for alto saxophone (David Pituch, USA, sax. solo), 1981, 11'

‘Majówka’ (Grzeg. Cimoszko, PL, flute solo; Christian Debecq and Pascal Doneux, B, flute; Pierre-Yves Artaud, F, various flutes solo + tape), 1982, 5 - 20'

‘Grande Fantaisie sur des airs de Chopaderzwewski’, tape and speeches (Actor: Boris Lehman, B; tape – part I: Goldsmith’s College, London), 1094, 15'

‘Space Music and Little Space Music for violin’ (Davod Brickmann, Rochester, NY; Maria Baranowska, PL), 1983, 2' - ad infinitum

‘Omaggio a Jo’ (tape; Ohain Studio ‘Métamorphoses d’Orphée’). 1984, 14'

‘The Five Rounds of the David’s Star’ for saxophone and five percussions (James Perone, sax., and the percussion ensemble of Jane Williams, Buffalo, NY), 1985, 19'

links:

http://fanny.tran.free.fr/presentation.htm

http://fanny.tran.free.fr/

backup-copy: FannyTran.pdf

NOTES

* It is debatable whether this is a review in the strict sense of the word. I was able to briefly glance at the two books and make excerpts during an afternoon spent in Tielt-Winge where I had come in order to read a few poems at H8X12 Space for Contemporary Art. - Andreas Weiland.

** A. Souffriau / P. Lachert / F. Nyst / A. Riotte / B. Oosterlynck / R. Fesler / D. Lawalree et A. Vande Gorne, Documenta Belgicae. I: Musiques. n.p. [Wavre?] (PMA-editions) 1981; 160 pp.

*** Paul Adriaenssens / Boudwijn Buckinx / George de Decker / Joris de Laet / Yves Knockaert / Baudouin Oosterlynck / Fanny Tran. Documenta Belgicae. II: Music. [Archennes] (PMA-Co-editions) 1985 [In English]