Reviewed by Michael Boyd
Computer Music Journal, Vol. 35 Issue 4
Space/Sound: Multichannel Electroacoustic Music by Thomas DeLio, Thomas Licata, Agostino Di Scipio, Kristian Twombly, Kees Tazelaar, and Linda DusmanDVD, 2008, Capstone Records, CPS-8811; available from Capstone Records, 252 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11205-3612, USA; telephone 718-852-2919; fax 718-852-2925; Web capstonerecords.org.
Reviewed by Michael Boyd
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Roger Reynolds’s DVD Watershed IV, released by Mode Records in 1998, was the first contemporary music DVD to feature spatialized sound specifically designed for home 5.1 -channel diffusion. Since that time, DVDs featuring 5.1 surround-sound have become an increasingly popular way for composers to release multi-channel music. Space/Sound is a striking 2008 release from Capstone Records that continues this practice. This DVD features music by six composers: Thomas DeLio, Thomas Licata, Agostino Di Scipio, Kristian Twombly, Kees Tazelaar and Linda Dusman, whose works were created between 2004 and 2008 and represent a broad range of technical and aesthetic approaches. This diversity and the overall quality of each piece make the disc delightful to hear.
The DVD begins with songs entitled, “Foxrock, near Dublin…”(2005) and “...zwischen den Worten” (2006), two works by DeLio whose music is surely familiar to many readers. These pieces, like several of this composer’s recent compositions, are electroacoustic settings of poetry, specifically poems by P. Inman and Paul Celan, respectively. The sounds of each composition are derived from readings of the poems, and notably, in the case of “Foxrock, near Dublin…,” that reading is by the poet. In the DVD liner notes, the composer articulates his larger approach to text- setting by quoting German musicologist Jürg Stenzl, who writes, “setting a poem means translating it into a completely different medium. In doing so, the text can be broken up, can disappear, or can even be impossible to hear.” Indeed, these works are far from linear presentations of each poem. In the setting of Inman’s poem, one hears fragments of the poem intertwined with continuously fluctuating, inharmonic textures that seem to reflect the sonic structure of the text while thoroughly blurring the words themselves. At times when Inman’s voice is clearly audible, DeLio superimposes multiple readings of the same line of text, thus presenting multiple perspectives on those lines while slightly obscuring the words themselves. Many of these same techniques are observable in “...zwis chen den Worten.” In this work the composer incorporates whispered readings of the poem, which sonically reflect the noisy nature of the initial two words of the first Celan poem: schwimmhäute and zwischen. These whispered lines seem to be placed in opposition to semi-pitched, almost bell-like, inharmonic gestures at the work’s outset. As the piece progresses, clearly spoken lines of text emerge that eventually seem to merge with the inharmonic sounds, integrating the initially oppositional elements. Notably, both works incorporate periods of silence that allow the pieces to breathe, though not to the same degree found in much of DeLio’s earlier work.
Overall, Space/Sound is characterized by significant aesthetic and technical diversity. The ability to experience the works of these six composers in four or five channels, rather than two, makes hearing these works a much richer experience that is, importantly, closer to each composer’s creative intentions. Listening to these pieces is simultaneously challenging and rewarding. I highly recommend this recording!