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Vox Alia

Werner Lambersy, Annette Vande Gorne

Programme notes

Today, “academic” or “serious” electroacoustic music seems to be reaching maturity. It is moving away from purely technological research, from adapting to — and hijacking — tools (first the analog ones, then software) and instruments. It is also moving away from the sole concern of sound, both in description (Pierre Schaeffer’s treatise on sound objects) and analysis (formants, spectrum), and in its various synthesis and transformation techniques. Like all other music today, acousmatic music is more concerned with issues of writing, language, and, in the case of this work, expressivity. This is because acousmatic music, by its very nature fixed on a memory support, is freed more than any other from the technological issues often tied to interactive relations with acoustic instruments or real time.

Is it because it is the signature, the audible trace by which each living being identifies itself and by which it marks others and detects their intentions? The voice remains the prime emotional and musical vehicle. It is the ancestral medium of all direct communication.

Vox Alia (1992-2024) is a cycle of five pieces which, through electroacoustic processing, retain traces of the melodic, rhythmic, and timbral qualities of this marvelous medium, in the service of a character, an affect, a collective ritual, an emotional or spiritual or anthropomorphic expression among others. The spatial writing of sound sequences plays an essential role in reinforcing the desired expression and clarifying polyphonies.

Moreover, the first work in the cycle, Vox Alia I — Affetti (1992-2000), itself in five movements, validated the expressive capabilities of multiphonic space before I went on to compose the acousmatic opera Yawar Fiesta (2006-12).

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Premiere

  • October 20, 2024, Premiere of the complete cycle: L’Espace du son 2024: Annette Vande Gorne: Vox Alia, Théâtre Marni, Brussels (Belgium)

Works in this cycle

Vox Alia I — Affetti

Is it because it is the signature, the audible trace by which each living being identifies itself and by which it marks others and detects their intentions? The voice remains the prime emotional and musical vehicle. It is the ancestral medium of all direct communication.

Vox Alia I — Affetti [known until 2022 as Vox Alia] is a suite of five short vocal studies.

Giocoso, which blends vocal music from every non-European continent and the Western past (“alleluia” from Stimmung by Stockhausen, Pygmy chant from Gabon, Inuit chant, diphone Tuva singing), is constructed as a binary and contrasted form, reinforced by spatial writing in bipolar dialogue — front-back, left-right, and all the diagonal combinations that can only be heard in the original octophonic version.

Amoroso experiments with ornamented, contrapuntal writing, both sonically and spatially, modeled on a Maronite rite phrase and a Salve Regina for mixed choir by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Amoroso opposes and embraces voices.

Innocentemente recovers the immediate, contrasting and elusive temporality and diffuse, informal spatiality of childhood from the voices of an eight-month-old baby and his mother. The overall form is retrograde mirroring.

Furioso erupts in violence in a linear, oriented space, with a rising, rhythmic, explosive energy that concludes with the violence of Medea by Cherubini, featuring the voice of Maria Callas.

The flow of the first four parts of Vox Alia I — Affetti reflect a reminiscence, a tenuous link with the classical sonata form.

The fifth part, Parola volante, is a short tribute to Pierre Schaeffer’s revolutionary thinking on sound, its morphological description, its perception in reduced listening conditions, its contribution to space, through a few sentences and Schaeffer’s voice, in polyphonic writing reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach, one of Schaeffer’s favourite composers.

Annette Vande Gorne [English translation: François Couture, i-25]


Vox Alia I — Affetti was realized from 1992 to 2000 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) with sound material obtained from Ina-GRM’s SYTER and MARS systems. The octophonic mix was produced at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio. The first movement, Giocoso, was premiered on June 20, 1996 at Théâtre de L’L (Brussels, Belgium). Amoroso and Innocentemente were premiered on April 10, 1998 during the Cycle acousmatique presented by Ina-GRM at the Salle Olivier Messiaen of the Maison de Radio France (Paris, France). Furioso was premiered on October 18, 2000 during the international acousmatic festival L’Espace du son at Chapelle de Boondael (Brussels. Belgium). The complete work — including Parola volante — was premiered on September 9, 2001 at Centre culturel de Rixensart (Genval, Belgium). Vox Alia I — Affetti was commissioned by the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) (Paris). Thanks to François Bayle and Daniel Teruggi.

Known until 2022 as Vox Alia the work is now titled Vox Alia I — Affetti, the first of the five works in the cycle Vox Alia (1992-2024).

Premiere

  • September 9, 2001, Under the title Vox Alia: Concert, Centre culturel de Rixensart, Genval (Belgium)
  • Year of composition: 1992-2000
  • Cycle: Vox Alia
  • Duration: 21:22
  • Instrumentation: 8-channel fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: Ina-GRM
  • ISRC: CAD500890180

Vox Alia II — Cathédrales

To Folkmar Hein

Five short linked sections — Alleluia; Danse sacrée [Sacred Dance]; Requiem; Transe [Trance]; Figures tutélaires [Tutelary Figures] — are unifying (through processing, mixing and spatial settings in relation to the theme) voices from all cultures and civilizations of the world, voices that are above all sacred, with the exception of the last section, which is an augmented variation of Parola volante, the last part of Vox Alia I — Affetti.

In these troubled times of division, fear, mourning and the withdrawal of people and nations, I felt the need to express a desire for unity, sacredness and generosity through the most human of media: the voice.

Alleluia remains fixed on this single word used in Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic cultures (the “religions of the Book”).

The sacred dance in Danse sacrée features male choirs simulating the Indonesian monkey dance.

Requiem takes up the codes and slow tempo of certain moments in the Catholic funeral mass.

Transe brews moments of loss of individual identity, of collective sacred intensity in various Sufi, Inuit, African, Indonesian, and Arabic cultures.

The guiding figures in Figures tutélaires are those of Pierre Schaeffer, about the concrete approach, and François Bayle, about octophony.

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Vox Alia II — Cathédrales was realized in 2021 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and premiered on October 30, 2021 during the concert DEGEM 30 @ ZKM: Verleihung des Thomas-Seelig-Fixed-Media-Musikpreises at the ZKM_Kubus of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany). The piece was commissioned by the DEGEM through the Thomas-Seelig-Fixed-Media-Preis 2021. Thanks to Folkmar Hein. The work was realized with support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Service de la musique classique et contemporaine du Service de la Création artistique).

Premiere

  • October 30, 2021, DEGEM 30 @ ZKM: Verleihung des Thomas-Seelig-Fixed-Media-Preises, ZKM_Kubus, Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg, Germany)

About this sound recording

This stereophonic Ambisonic reduction was produced from the original multichannel version by Julien Guillamat in January 2025 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium).

  • Year of composition: 2021
  • Cycle: Vox Alia
  • Duration: 10:56
  • Instrumentation: 16.4-channel fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: DEGEM
  • ISRC: CAD502510016

Vox Alia III — Vox intima

To Alice Eskenasi, my goddaughter

“Perhaps writing [composing] is a way of being silent?

Werner Lambersy

This short poem by Werner Lambersy sums up how I feel about the unique activity that is creating music. I therefore appropriated it by choosing to make a choral reading of it with my own voice and to accentuate the meaning of the words by some madrigalizations of sound or spatial treatments. The slow, stable tempo is based on certain spectral moments of Treize couleurs du soleil couchant (1978) by Tristan Murail.

[i-25]


Vox Alia III — Vox intima was realized in 2022-23 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and was premiered on February 1st, 2023 during the concert Vox Alia — Une autre voix, Son-sens at Espace Senghor in Brussels (Belgium). The work was realized with support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Service de la musique classique et contemporaine du Service de la Création artistique).

Premiere

  • February 1, 2023, Vox Alia — Une autre voix, Son-sens, Le Senghor, Brussels (Belgium)

Awards

About this sound recording

This stereophonic Ambisonic reduction was produced from the original multichannel version by Julien Guillamat in January 2025 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium).

  • Year of composition: 2022-23
  • Cycle: Vox Alia
  • Duration: 9:08
  • Instrumentation: 16.2-channel fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISRC: CAD502510017

Vox Alia IV — Vox populi

To Francis Dhomont, in memoriam

… Vox Dei? This short work mixes human choral voices brought together and unified by rituals: from children’s games and shouts to the shouts of demonstrators protesting in the public space, from the cries of babies to the litanies of communal prayers. Close to the spirit of the Hörspiel, this piece puts forth the necessity of sound recording as a basis and consequently plays with degrees of image recognition (iconic or their imprints) to communicate with the listener’s imagination. Its form is a succession of short tableaux, all linked to the other works in the Vox Alia cycle.

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Vox Alia IV — Vox populi was realized in 2023 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and was premiered on November 29, 2023 during the inaugural concert of the Fondation Annette Vande Gorne at Espace Senghor in Brussels (Belgium). The work was realized with support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Service de la musique classique et contemporaine du Service de la Création artistique).

Premiere

  • November 29, 2023, Fondation Annette Vande Gorne — Concert inaugural, Le Senghor, Brussels (Belgium)

About this sound recording

This stereophonic Ambisonic reduction was produced from the original multichannel version by Julien Guillamat in January 2025 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium).

  • Year of composition: 2023
  • Cycle: Vox Alia
  • Duration: 9:21
  • Instrumentation: 16-channel fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISRC: CAD502510018

Vox Alia V — Vox naturæ

To Marie-Jeanne Wyckmans

Not objectivized nature, which is asserted today by an accumulation of climatic catastrophes, but the animal voice, subjectivized through a certain degree of anthropomorphism. The animal world has its own language codes expressing the primary needs that concern us all: love, hunger, fear. When listened to, these signals are grouped according to three dynamic behaviours: flexions, iterations and melodic profiles, which are therefore the object of study in this fifth and final work of the Vox Alia cycle. Space, whether pointillist, movement or ambiophonic, is rather symbolic here.

[i-25]


Vox Alia V — Vox naturæ was realized in 2024 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and was premiered on October 20, 2024 as part of the festival L’Espace du son at Théâtre Marni in Brussels (Belgium). The work was realized with support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Service de la musique classique et contemporaine du Service de la Création artistique).

Premiere

  • October 20, 2024, L’Espace du son 2024: Annette Vande Gorne: Vox Alia, Théâtre Marni, Brussels (Belgium)

Awards

About this sound recording

This stereophonic Ambisonic reduction was produced from the original multichannel version by Julien Guillamat in January 2025 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium).

  • Year of composition: 2024
  • Cycle: Vox Alia
  • Duration: 8:20
  • Instrumentation: 16.4-channel fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISRC: CAD502510019