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October 24, 2009
196 :: 23 October 2009 :: Music Games


Morton Subotnick: In Two Worlds (2007)
Susan Fancher, winds and electronics
Innova 736 (2009)
Pioneering electronic composer Morton Subotnick wrote the title track, In Two Worlds, back in 1987 but the software to perform it (”Interactor”) is already obsolete. A new version using Max/MSP had to be created to make this recording possible.
Morton Feldman: Projection I (1950), Composition - 8 Little Pieces (1950), Intersection IV (1951)
Arne Deforce, cello; Yutaka Oya, piano; Aeon AECD 0977 (2008)
Morton Feldman’s early Projections and Intersections pieces, written between 1950 and 1953, are series of ‘graph’ compositions in which […] time is represented by space, and in which the spaced boxes specify only instrument, register, number of simultaneous sounds, mode of production, and duration. The two series differ in that the Projections are to be consistently quiet, while in the Intersections ‘the player is free to choose any dynamic at any entrance but must maintain sameness of volume’ - though ‘what is desired in both … is a pure (non-vibrating) tone’. (»Paul Griffiths)
Christopher Hobbs: Sudoku 82 (2008)
Bryan Pezzone, piano; Cold Blue 0033 (2009) New Release Preview
Sudoku 82, a spare, beautiful, spacious piece for eight pianos, was composed utilizing systems derived from sudoku puzzles and the GarageBand computer program.
“Sudoku 82 is one of a series of pieces I have been working on since 2005. There are now over 125 of them that use Apple’s GarageBand software and random procedures culled from the numbers found initially in hexadecimal sudoku puzzles and latterly from online random number generators. I choose the sounds I want and the overall duration, but then let the numbers determine what goes where, how many times, how long, how much silence, and so on. Sudoku 82 used a number of piano loops played on eight pianos at an extremely slow tempo, the result being that the pianists seem to be frozen in time. It was Jim Fox who suggested that the piece might be performed ‘live’ rather than using samples as I had originally done. This is therefore the first of the series to come off the computer and into the recording studio, and I am delighted with the result, which is dedicated to Jim Fox, whose music and predisposition towards slow tempos I have admired for many years.” —CH
Originally posted by rchrd from Music From Other Minds, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Oct 24, 2009 at 08:13 AM