A small fragment of a rehearsal of Kampela's Motets during ou residency at Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart

Arthur Kampela - Motets (fragment of rehearsal)by Oh Mensch

Arthur Kampela:  Percussion Study I

En Marzo del año 2006 mientras ensayaba mi ópera La selva interior en Buenos Aires fui invitado por los músicos de la Fernandez Fierro a hacer una improvisación dirigida. La combinación de instrumentos abrió mi apetito sonoro: 4 bandoneones, violín, viola cello, contrabajo y piano. 

La grabación quedó guardada por dos o tres años hasta que en una de las tantas noches frías de Berlin en el 2009 se me ocurrió escuchar lo grabado. La feliz ausencia de la voz del cantante (que me recordaba al cantor de los cien barrios porteños, Alberto Castillo) me hizo pensar en agregar un texto que -dicho desde la voz de un sabihondo de esos que abundan en Buenos Aires- diera una clase magistral sobre la poesía del tango. Encontré el texto justo en una página de la red y la grabé con el típico tono del sabihondo de café. Luego sumé la voz a las texturas instrumentales.

Sabihondo

Momenta Quartet
Performed live May 12, 2017

2017 5/12 Bates

Arthur Kampela: C-Proposition from Uma Faca Só Lamina ('A Knife All Blade')

Imagem:
"Out of one, two (symposium)" (2016)
Jenny Saville

Cânone

This piece was composed as part of my Columbia University doctorate dissertation (1996-7). At the time of its conception, I was researching how pulses, timbre and motoric aspects contribute to creating new arrays of rhythms that are linked to previously played materials. I developed then, what is now known as "Micro-Metric Modulation.” Based on the mathematical property of commutativity, it provides rhythmic bridges between complex rhythms (ratios and sub-ratios), allowing for a seamless transformation of speeds and gestures from one point to the next. I was also interested in producing new sounds on traditional instruments using extended-techniques and contextualizing the ergonomics of playing as a “thematic” element. 

The quartet is divided in different sections or "propositions." Two Cadenzas act as the structural ‘pillars’ of the piece: first, the viola at the opening then the cello near the end. Compositionally, a new “phenomenology of hearing” erupts from the overloading of information at fast speeds. Our perception absorbs continuous events while processing what it’s just heard. The time “lag” between hearing and remembering, “squeezes” the cognitive grasp to a point where the acoustic output acquires a sudden visual, spatial or tactile quality. The title "A Knife All Blade,” (analogous to a holographic device showing the same object at different angles, claustrophobic and inescapable), is borrowed from the Brazilian constructivist poet João Cabral de Mello Neto. It illustrates our internal clocks, our urgencies or knives, always poking the "insides of man" - “…of the man who would wound himself / against his own bones.”

String Quartet Uma Faca Só Lâmina: A Knife All Blade (CD Version - Momenta Quartet)

Phalanges, for Harp solo (1995) - program notes
The title "Phalanges" refers to the fingers' bones, the very skeleton of the player, the subcutaneous motor skills that underlie the act of playing/touching the strings. Compositionally, there are three main ideas that intersperse in this piece:
1) The ergonomic or motoric one, referring to the way the hands accommodate the technical demands of the instrument; 
2)The Rhythmic ‘sculpting,’ referring to the interaction of complex rhythms and the use of my system of Micro-Metric Modulation, a mathematical way to link very complex rhythms/ratios through common denominators speeds; 
3)The use of extended-techniques dividing the harp into three different sonic regions in which the middle one employs a cloth/paper that mutes the pitches subsequently creating a kind of timbral asymmetry in the sonic presentation of the instrument.
First, the ergonomic aspect: the creation of motives and themes in this piece are a direct result of the very patterns of the player's hands/fingers. New sonic material emerges as a result of the dislocation of the hands throughout the harp. This is accomplished in two ways: a) When the harpist stretches hands widening or contracting the gaps between fingers while maintaining similar fingerings’ patterns - thus, creating small melodic distortions; b) Through the mere pedal- retuning of the strings providing a diverse melodic or harmonic contour for similar hands' patterns; Even if the fingers’ patterns are not “thematically audible,” (since they only refer to the techniques that propel the sounds) they acquire, nevertheless, the status of "articulatory themes" being as important as the audible ones.
Second, using a mathematical way to mediate between two adjacent rhythms through a system I developed called Micro-Metric Modulation. Although complex rhythms can be very demanding to execute it is possible to imagine an effective rhythmic bridge that is common to two adjacent and differing rhythms or ratio configurations. This approach is based on commutative and associative properties and is derived from Elliott Carter’s polyrhythmic ideas, but in a “compressed” way. It is fully developed on my Doctoral Thesis from 1997-8 (Micro Metric Modulation: New Directions in the Theory of Complex Rhythms), although uses of it on my own music are anterior to the thesis itself).
Third, employing a series of devices (paper between strings, tuning fork, constant pedal glissandi, half-pedal “buzz” sounds, etc.) I managed to destabilize the typical way of playing the instrument and the way it is commonly heard. More than seeking mere effects, I was “seeing” the instrument as a sonic (found-)object that could be “subjected” to different types of timbristic and ergonomic demands. Finally, studying the way the instrument behaves under certain rhythmic constraints it was possible to manipulate with similar flexibility pitch and noise (extended-techniques) zones. The theatrical aspect of Phalanges conveys its deep meaning: Navigating between the fingers' technical demands and its almost magic output (the music itself) the harpist questions the public with a bleak and distancing (‘Brechtnian’) look, as if saying, - “...where does music begin? And where it ends...?”
© Arthur Kampela 2014

Phallanges For Harp Solo (Performed live by Anne Bassande Zurich, 1995)

My piece’s title comes from both, a nickname that Smetak was kindly addressed by Gilberto Gil (a great Brazilian songwriter from the “Tropicalist” movement of the 1960s) and an allusion to his own metier as a luthier and builder of innovative sound-producing objects/sculptures/instruments. The title spells accents and dynamic motion, emphasizing the hybrid character of language itself and in particular, of everything that was of Smetak - this benign “Bruxo” (sorcerer), -  interest…. Has the music started already in the title…? - might be an interesting Smetakian question..! 

The Plásticas Sonoras (sonic plastics) can be seen in two very distinctive ways. From one side they are objects without ‘restrictions’ that embody a new type of relationship not with traditional music but the sound itself. They do not come with a guideline as how to “properly” play them. The very playing becomes an invention of the performer. They can be played by many performers at once (see his ‘Pindorama’), etc. On the other hand, they are embedded in an aesthetic viewpoint, since timbre itself implies a formal commitment to a specific sonic outcome and consequently, a formal perspective. 

Thus, in order to “escape” the “Smetakian trap,” his creative volition, I decided to expose and subvert somehow the formal constituents of his instruments, their technical ‘limitations.’ My aim during this composition was to create a new kind of virtuosity that has in common with western instruments the fact that engaged musicianship is being constantly assessed in order to show the instruments’ plasticity. Thus, I deployed new techniques for their manipulations reinventing a repertoire of gestures for them. That way I could create a “Cadenza” for the VINA (a cello-like instrument, Smetak’s most prominent invention) that is extremely virtuosi in demand but keeps the uniqueness of the instrument, its iconic difference, visible and functional to the music… As a common feature of my own music, I always try to avoid exposing instruments as part of an innocuous circus where they would be just a mere gimmick, or “effects’ makers”. My score is a reflection of complex processes in order to safeguard and subsume all its materials to the same compositional demands. I also treated the Western instruments using Smetak’s hybrid approach. The piano and the percussionist II make up for one unique instrument: both play the same piano; the guitarist and the flutist have percussive instruments to prolong their own gestures in other directions… The Smetakian “Chori Sol e Lua” although built for a cellist type of player, is performed here by a guitarist. 

Finally, I wanted to subsume the whole Smetakian concept of a cosmic instrument, creating a kind of “vibrating entanglement” of all the musicians. For that, I built what I called the “Elastic Tree.” It is a visually enticing scenario. However, my intention was to link all the musicians through elastics that vibrate with percussive instruments when shaken, maintaining a basic musical priority. This vision came to me as I contemplated Smetak’s instrument “Pindorama.” A bamboo structure that spits from its head or top (like a Medusa) “plastic hairs” in other words, plastic tubes whose end exhibit small flutes. This instrument, played by many musicians at the same time, is somehow a powerful metaphor for our time of divisions of all sorts: financial, racial, religious, political, aesthetic, national, etc. I think that my own Elastic Tree functions as a Smetakian icon, where Smetak ceases to be seen as an alien or marginalized figure within our common history; an Icon that, I hope, reverberates (and alerts), within the unchanged climate of our primitive culture - where Utopia is a form of dystopia and earthlings are the true aliens…


©Arthur Kampela 2017 “The Smetak Project” DAAD/ Ensemble Modern

Downloads

Tak-Tak...Tak for Smetak's sonic plastics and Large Ensemble

Motets for 2 guitars (after Machaut) originated as a commission from the American Guitar Duo comprised of Laura Oltman and Michael Newman. It was premiered by them on the occasion of the eighth-hundredth Anniversary of Reims Cathedral a place much associated with the composer Guillaume de Machaut. One of the interesting insights of this piece is the fact that both guitarists start it with their guitar’s back turned towards the audience. This “awkward” disposition of their instruments (a first in the repertoire!) propels the piece forward as it ignites the percussive materials and destabilizes the expected mode of hearing the guitar. It also forces the guitarists to look for new ways to perform their instruments. This type of ‘ergonomic twist’ is already a 'thematic material' that will shape the subsequent elements of the piece - as well as its Form. This 'deterrence of the gestuality' through the sheer 'awkwardness' of inverting the guitar's normal playing "side," becomes a kind of a guideline of the composition itself... At its beginning, the guitarists are seated in ‘antiphonal disposition’ (like 2 separate choirs at a church). Both guitars are tuned 1/4 tone apart from each other. After the percussive intro, a “bell-like” (high) sound emerges, plucked by the left hand alone on the strings located between the tuning pegs and the nut. They symbolize the church-bells announcing the religious service. These 'harmonic materials' start to gain momentum and leap to the fore as one of the guitarists turn the guitar to its normal position. The metric narrative of the piece grows to incorporate Micro-Metric Modulation, a device that links distinct metric configurations through common denominators speeds and allows to pass a rhytmic ratio between them. (That's a first in Western music!!) At its middle the piece seems to coalesce into a microtonal episode where pitch becomes the prominent element. Another insight happens here: An isorhythmic Motet from the master is heard, albeit rhythmically and microtonally distorted, only to be questioned by all sorts of sonic, percussive, “debris...”  This strategy becomes my particular way of dialoguing with the “dead” master - as if two parallel universes were suddenly communicating. The mere continuum of sonic materials of different origins (mine and Machaut’s), superseded the need of a specific style, and an open dialog, inaugurates a mutual 'dialect.' Machaut and I are just “talking, cursing, disagreeing, being, etc.,” After citing the Machaut's Motet, the guitarists start to use glass, percussive effects, pencils, spoons, etc. slowly reinterpreting the timbral narrative of the piece and the isorhythmic motet Just heard. The "incongruity of an improbable meeting between composers sitting at incompatible 'time's shores..." is none but a subtext to bring the piece to a halt. A spoon manipulating the length of strings, as it pressures them near the bridge produces a “wavery, underwater,” resonance: pitches are hammered-on with the left hand alone while the spoon creates this natural reverb, a “wa-wa-like effect” (a Kampela 'trademark')that resonates with the idea of a Cathédrale Engloutie. The audible narrative shifts to slow waves vibrating in time - outside time itself...  Finally, although realizing our ‘unbridgeable gap’, we keep insisting on a form of music that is beyond sound itself - maybe a distant echo, a faint ‘YES,’  - between foreign, musical languages, solitudes, and landscapes...
 
©Arthur KAMPELA (Program Notes for Motets, 2019)

Arthur Kampela Compositions

Motets for 2 guitars (After Machaut)

Interpretado pelo próprio Arthur Kampela.

Phallanges For Harp Solo (Performed live by Anne Bassande Zurich, 1995)

Arthur Kampela

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