Études transcendantes pour piano imaginaire (six movements) 2015; Grande Toccata 2006; Gymkhana 1970
If I had any reservation about the Chroniques terriennes of disc one, that goes away with the Études transcendantes pour piano imaginaire (2015). Transcendental Etudes for Imaginary Piano.
The title of "transcendental etudes" dates back to Liszt. It was later taken up by Sorabji and Ferneyhough. I have a CD of the so-called transcendental etudes, switching between Liszt and Ligeti.
The title immediately clicks for me, when listening to the work. It's mostly piano sounds of some sort, in some ways harking back to the "Bidule en ut" of 1950. The sounds originate from the piano (prepared and not played traditionally), are layered, and mixed with other extraneous sounds occasionally.
Since the piano is imaginary here, and the etudes transcendental, I am picturing this as being Henry's own imaginary piano. His piano would able to play all the things readily at the keyboard. The preparations, knocking, resonances, combinations of sounds, and so forth. I'm picturing the eight-armed being surrounded by 1,000 keys and a variety of gadgets and whatnots, that be required to perform these etudes.
The final movement gets weirdly funky.
I will mentioned that there are notes, but at the moment I'm not particularly interested.
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Grande Toccata: A toccata, traditionally speaking, is a freely composed work intended to demonstrate virtuosic ability on the part of a keyboardist. This definition is in stark contrast to the sound of this work, which is neither keyboard-based, nor does it have a virtuosic quality (except for perhaps the beautiful production).
It demonstrate's Henry's love of the recorded sound, and the various things you can do with it. There's an atmosphere here: breathing sounds, tapped metal bowls, slamming doors, elevators, digitally manipulated piano sounds. There's some synthesized sounds in the mix, perhaps. It's difficult to tell. It could be natural sounds digitally drawn out over time.
I could easily draw a comparison to Nurse With Wound on this particular work, though perhaps less emphasis on the voice than NWW tends to be. The problem is, that's like comparing the work of the teacher to the student, and not the other way around.
So what is the commonality? Maybe there's more of a narrative character to this work than the previous one, something I associate with NWW. Musique concréte can take on a storytelling quality, even if that quality is obscured. Our brain naturally makes connections between what we see and hear in the moment, and our previous experiences. If we recognize something, we associate it with memory. If we don't, our brain tries to.
Something's happening here. It's dark, builds, it's sometimes in an elevator. I try to resist such things, but I can't help believe there's a horror movie vibe to the work in the latter third. What's happening?
And it has a degree of drama. It's intense towards the end. It's not meant to be math sound without effect. There's also a tiny little coda at the end.
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Gymkhana (1970, remixed 2016). My daughter, when quite young, went to the Gymkhana above the East End Food Co-op. I never gave much thought to the name, besides having the word "gym" in it.
I looked up: it's a location where various gymnastics and other sporting events are held. Okay.
This work is markedly different that the previous ones. The sounds are very clearly based on acoustical recordings, and there is a large degree of scoring going on. It begins with slow, irregular percussive sounds. They're filtered but definitely not synthesized. It feels and sounds more Asian than anything in this set (so far).
Then the instruments enter. Definitely piccolo, flute(s), oboe, bassoon high register (?). Maybe others, some horn perhaps?
Again, without referring to the notes, I get a very strong gagaku flavor from this. What is gagaku? It's the oldest extant orchestral music in the world, Japanese imperial court music. It's always slow. There are mouth organs (sho) playing cluster chords, percussion, some sort of transverse flute, biwa, nasty double reeds. I forget all the names of the instruments. It's weirdly both dreamy and strident.
But there's a twist in the work 3/4 of the way through, when brass instruments are introduced. They are similarly irregular as the woodwinds before, with the piccolo being the last to interact with them.
All the while, there are the percussive sounds, clearly manipulated through recording and processing techniques.
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