Topic: Avant Garde Music for Solo Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.

[Mandryka]

Liza Lim's notes for Invisibility

The most recent work in this line of investigation is a solo cello piece called Invisibility which
also acts as a study piece for an orchestral work (Pearl, Ochre Hair String) that I'm currently
writing. One of things I wanted to explore in this piece for 'cello was to work with an
interactivity at the material level of the instrument – that is, the strings, their resonance
properties and how the strings are set into motion or stopped. Firstly, I retuned the strings so
rather than having the fairly even spread of tension achieved in standard tuning (C-G-D-A),
each string is retuned at a different level of tension, each string has a different kind of 'give' or
resistance. The tuning is B (the lowest string dropped by a semitone), F (the next string
lowered by a tone), the third string stays the same at D and the highest string is radically
detuned down to Dsharp.
As well as these different tensions held in the strings, I employ two types of bows to activate
the strings – a normal bow and then a second bow which I call a 'guiro' bow after the serrated
South American percussion instrument. The bow hair is wrapped around the wood to give an
alternating hair and wood playing surface. The two bows bring different weights and qualities
of greater or lesser friction into the equation of how the instrument is sounded.
From the player's point of view, how it 'feels' under the fingers is quite different – there is
more variation than usual – places of resistance or flow that need to be navigated when
playing the music. This physical set-up foregrounds the material or physical aspect of the
cello – a more interactive playing surface is created where the 'cello is not just an instrument
that is somehow passively acted upon but it has torque, it has lines of forces that directs how
it is to be played. In a real sense, the 'cello also plays the musician and it governs the shaping
of the music sounds in a very direct way.
The Invisibility of the title of the piece is not about silence, for the work is full of sounds.
Rather, as in Grosz' and Deleuze's conception, I'm working with an idea of the invisible or
latent forces of the physical set-up of the instrument. What emerges as the instrument is
sounded in various increasingly rhythmicised ways, is a landscape of unpredictable nicks and
ruptures as different layers of action - speed, tension, pressure of the bows, of the strings -
flow across each other. The composition also works with magnifications of the level of these
disruptions by intensifying various paradoxical combinations - eg: playing a string at a nonharmonic node so that the string vibrates in highly complex ways. The string doesn't settle in
any one vibrational zone but flicks or flickers (shimmers) between states so that what results
is an unpredictable array of different noises and harmonics.
The two kinds of bow used in the piece offer different possibilities of friction, for instance, the
stop/start structure of the serrated bow adds an uneven granular layer of articulation over
every sound. Like the cross-hatched designs or dotting effects of Aboriginal art, the bow
creates a highly mobile sonic surface through which you can hear the outlines of other kinds
of movements and shapes. Moving rapidly between places of relative stability and instability
in terms of how the cello is sounded, the piece shows up patterns of contraction and
expansion, accumulation and dissipation, aligning with forces that are at work within the
instrument-performer complex.

A performance here

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/6jqNGQfil08&amp;ab_channel=mondayeveningconcert" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/6jqNGQfil08&amp;ab_channel=mondayeveningconcert</a>

Here's a bit of Yolngu art showing the cross-hatched designs or dotting effects which, I guess, are reflected in the bow



Note that she appeals to the feel of the scordatura for the performer, it cannot be heard. Neither can the feel of the twisted bow. It makes me wonder whether this is music designed more to be played than heard.

[Mandryka]

Tod Machover invented the hypercello, which, briefly, uses IT to extend the cello's possibilities to respond to the physical gestures of the player. He wrote Begin Again Again for solo hypercello and Yoyo Ma recorded it here. It is very congenial modernism, and Ma playing it is totally consistent with his conservative but modern tendencies (think  The Silk Road Ensemble.) As far as I know Marr never recorded it, here it's Matt Haimowitz.    This is modernism that your granny will love.

[Mandryka]

A gem of a minimal piece for viola here Pierluigi Billone's Iti Ke Mi for solo viola

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/VeM71TWqD_g&amp;ab_channel=wasteLAndmusic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/VeM71TWqD_g&amp;ab_channel=wasteLAndmusic</a>

https://www.pierluigibillone.com/en/texts/iti_ke_mi.html

[Mandryka]

It's very good to see the Ferneyhough Time and Motion Study II being played, you see the interaction between the electronics and the cello, now I know why it's called Electric Chair Music

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/8-fCBaYzOxg&amp;ab_channel=mondayeveningconcert" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/8-fCBaYzOxg&amp;ab_channel=mondayeveningconcert</a>

[Mandryka]

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/00/000122000.pdf

https://pemipaull.com/

I came across this CD while exploring recordings of the Ligeti viola sonata. This is the recording my attention the most, for its sobriety and expressiveness. The recording also has a piece inspired by Obrecht written by Michael Finnissy - very well done, a great pleasure to hear.

Pemi Paull is based in Canada and his has quite a few recordings of ensemble music. He’s an example of that familiar beast: someone who enjoys early and contemporary music. A great find for me, this one - good sound too.

[Mandryka]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/Z3soOcrJ6Ic&amp;list=OLAK5uy_naaUXWiJ6GWSy8yAr3-RgLUyKay158vaY&amp;index=5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/Z3soOcrJ6Ic&amp;list=OLAK5uy_naaUXWiJ6GWSy8yAr3-RgLUyKay158vaY&amp;index=5</a>

This is a violin improvisation by Michael Goldstein. The interesting question for me is whether there are any features of the music which make it particularly improvisatory - compared with some of the composed solo music on this thread (eg the cello part of Time and Motion Study.)

[Mandryka]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/Y9a6n-DIJGg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/Y9a6n-DIJGg</a>

The texture Claus Steffen Mahnkopf’s Courier’s Tragedy for solo cello  reminds me of parts of Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II - but Ferneyhough benefits from electronics, has more variety, and makes effective use of space and silence. The relentless jumpy articulation of the Marhnkopf is uncomfortable for me, as if something is trying to get free, to become,  it is like Yeats’s rough beast

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I can’t help feel that the Mahnkopf is too long.