PROJECT | L'autre-1

View More

The work is scored for 1 horn, 2 percussion, 1 harp, 1  mezzo-soprano/narrator, and the stereo tape. The piece was commissionedd by Radio France and was premiered at the Presence Festival in Paris by the Continuum Ensemble with Joel Sachs conducting in 1999. The piece could not have been completed without generous support from IRCAM and the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. 

In L'Autre, the age-old artistic contention for ascendancy between poetry and music mirros the struggle between consciousness and the unconscious. Through a  deeply interwoven collaboration between composer Edmund Campion and poet John Campion, L'Autre begins with the origins and hopeful emergence of consciousness out of the unconscious - the birth of language Ithe logos) out of a primordial welter of sounds and syllables. The work traces the development of this Ur-relationship throug hthe usurpation and domination of the unconscious by consciousness, the feminine by the masculine. This conflict is poortrayed as a modern fear of "The Other" - race, culture and gender. As the piece progresses, the kinship between the two elemental principles becomes untenable. After much terrible experience, the repressed feminine, reporn with gnosis, returns with song to offer its counterpart another, different, chance at collaboration          David.

From Swan Songs is the opening piece in Swan Songs, a larger suite of pieces that has yet to be written.  The piece opens with a series of disconnected miniatures each exposing some imagined past for the violin -- Beethoven to Lachenmann.  The piece ends with a long duet, the first Swan Song.   The violin is a noisy instrument and underneath its beautiful tone is lurking all kinds of swooshes, bleeps and full spectrum explosions.  In the hands of a master violinist such as Abel, these noise elements are so carefully choreographed with the tone that we hardly notice they exist.   As in the opening scene in David Lynch's movie Blue Velvet, where the beautifully tended green lawns of suburbia hide the microscopic horror below, close examination of the violin sound exposes the chaotic turbulence caused by hundreds of tiny hairs violently ripping and grating across a high-tension string.  Western classical music, where the violin is king, had no assigned role, nor notation practice for noise, keeping the noise hidden in a fabulous array of techniques.  I've long thought that the avant-garde's fascination with noise and new techniques was in large part the return of the repressed.  Imagine a history of music where noise had always been recognized as an integrated part of the compositional palette, an imaginary place where the avant-garde revolution and obsession with the emancipation of noise and sound was no longer needed, a place where harmony and noise existed along the same continuum. That thought is the inspiration for Swan Songs.  I hope that the listener is able to discern the cues intended to reveal that this music is neither neo-romantic, nor post-modern.  As with all my music, it is what I call post-experimental.   So the Swan Songs go on and on and hopefully there will be many to come. 

Expand Video

Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada. Donec rutrum congue leo eget malesuada. Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada. Cras ultricies ligula sed magna dictum porta. Praesent sapien massa, convallis a pellentesque nec, egestas non nisi. Nulla porttitor accumsan tincidunt. Praesent sapien massa, convallis a pellentesque nec, egestas non nisi. Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada

L'autre 

Swan Songs Mix

L'Autre

Images (click image to expand)

Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada. Donec rutrum congue leo eget malesuada. Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada. Cras ultricies ligula sed magna dictum porta. Praesent sapien massa, convallis a pellentesque nec, egestas non nisi. Nulla porttitor accumsan tincidunt. Praesent sapien massa, convallis a pellentesque nec, egestas non nisi. Donec sollicitudin molestie malesuada.

Documents (click to download)

Concert Music

Rock Music

Concert Music

Rock Music

For more information about the work click here
To download materials related to this work click here