… et ainsi de suite…
Jonty Harrison
Programme notes
I had wanted for some time to compose a ‘French Suite,’ rather in the manner of the musique concrète tradition. Sounds from some rough-textured wine glasses, which had been transformed in the Studio numérique (digital studio) of the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM, Paris, France) using predominantly time-domain manipulation (etir), brassage (brage and bragge) and spatialization programs, provided a promising starting point. These individual sounds were onwardly transformed using a variety of digital signal processors in the Electroacoustic Music Studios of The University of Birmingham (UK), combined with a number of other sound sources, further transformed, recombined… and so on…
I ventured into this pool of material from time to time in order to compose short, essentially self-contained movements. The reassembling of new, specific musical utterances from the same source material led to the idea that, by analogy, complete movements (which would inevitably contain a plethora of cross-references) could be assembled in various ways to create pieces of different lengths and pacings for different occasions, spaces… and so on…
Over a dozen movements have been composed to date. Their different functions are characterized, to continue the link with the musique concrète suite, by French titles
The CD version — itself a revision of the Birmingham Version 1992 — has eleven movements, whose durations range from 40 seconds to nearly 4 minutes. A characteristic of this version is the overlapping of movements (movements 6 to 9 form a continuous whole, as do the final two movements), emphasizing the more dramatic potential of the material. Overall, however, the work is not a vehicle for a dynamic or dramatic musical argument
The Birmingham Version 1992 of … et ainsi de suite… was first performed on February 27, 1992 in a ‘live’ radiobroadcast of a BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre) concert at the BBC Pebble Mill Studios (Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK) as part of the Sounds Like Birmingham — UK City of Music 1992 festival. … et ainsi de suite… was awarded a Distinction at the Prix Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria, 1993) and 1st prize in the Musica Nova 1994 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic).
Premiere
- February 27, 1992, Seventh Barber Festival of Contemporary Music 1992
: BEAST — Music in Our Time, Pebble Mill Studios — British Broadcasting Corporation – Studio 1, Birmingham (England, UK)
Awards
- Distinction, Computer Music, Prix Ars Electronica 1993, Linz (Austria)
- 1st prize ex æquo, Category A (fixed medium), Musica Nova 1994, Prague (Czech Republic)
- Composer(s): Jonty Harrison
- Year of composition: 1992
- Duration: 19:17
- Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
- Publisher(s): Ymx média
- ISRC: CAD509611640
Movements
à propos
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
(parenthèse 1)
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
commentaire 1
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
(parenthèse 2)
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
réflexion
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
commentaire 2
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
souffle d’insectes (parenthèse 3)
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
résonance (parenthèse 4)
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
résumé
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
(parenthèse 5)
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
commentaire 3
- Movement of: … et ainsi de suite…
