VOTD 4/26/2024

Karel Goeyvaerts: Pour Que Les Fruits Mûrissent Cet Été/Op Acht Paarden Wedden (Finders Keepers)

Purchased used at The Government Center

I thought I had seen Goeyvaerts' name somewhere before when I picked up this LP in the bins at The Government Center. Sure enough, two of his pieces are on this great collection: 

https://www.discogs.com/master/176137-Various-Cologne-WDR-Early-Electronic-Music

There are some of the names in the notes on the back cover you'd expect: studied with Milhaud, Messiaen, and even Maurice Martonet; had a correspondence with Stockhausen and produced electronic compositions in the WDR studios.

Looking over the LP, it looked close enough to the sort of thing I'd buy even if I wasn't entirely certain. The works on this date from the 1970s, so therefor are a later vintage than those earlier electronic compositions on the collection mentioned above.

The music produced in the WDR studios can at times be highly severe. Which is not to say grating or sonically difficult to tolerate (or at least, not always), but super-rationalized and very tightly wound. There are times when I love it; I find Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Tratto" to be very beautiful and even strangely moving. 

I think I like the whole France vs Germany, musique concrète vs elektronische musik methods and composers' groups, they way I like visual artists in the 19-teens, 20s, 30s, writing manifestos. The Dadaist Manifesto, Surrealist Manifesto, etc. Generally young, passionate men (and it was usually men) each staking his idealogical territory. Looking back, sometimes the differences between Surrealist and Dadaist art can be slender to non-existent.

The differences between musique concrète and elektronische musik can be very pronounced, in both methods and materials. And yet, in retrospect, it seems silly why the two approaches couldn't co-exist all along, and it wasn't too long before they did. 

When I lecture about this history in my classes, I'm quick to mention that the broader picture is far more complex. Not all electronic and technology-based music came from France and Germany, not all composers adhered to such strict ideologies. It's a way to demonstrate the polar approaches of early electronic music composition.

Side one, "Pour Ques Les Fruits...", from 1975, originally released in 1977. I don't think there's an electronic component to this work. The music recalls Medieval and Renaissance musics, through the lens of what was then current Minimalism. The piece vaguely recalls "In C". Was Goeyvaerts influenced by this movement? If so, he wouldn't be the first "non-Minimalist' to try his hand at it; David Stock's "Keep the Change" comes to mind. While David was a sort-of "New Tonal' composer, he never was committed to the more restrictive Minimalist mold. 

The above work is significantly different than side two, "Op Acht Paarden Wedden" which dates to 1973. It is a setting for electronic tape and recordings of live instruments. The results are mixed improvisationally, and according to the notes a live performance version mixing the tapes is possible. It's strange in its use of scraping inside-the-piano sounds, contrasting with the more smooth-edged electronic sounds. 

When I consider both works, I wonder: what constitutes a Goeyvaerts composition? Is it worth the effort to try to find more recordings? I guess the question is fresh on my mind, considering my own self-reflections on similar topics.