Convergence Lines
for ten instruments and electronics (2013)
Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain
Pierre-André Valade, conductor
Electronics realized at GRAME (Lyon)
LIVE RECORDING — 7 March 2014, Biennale Musiques en Scène, Lyon, France
-----
This project began with the idea of writing a new piece in 2013 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Thomas Pynchon’s V.—his ambitious first novel, a huge canvas drawing together a large cast of vivid characters, far- flung settings, and a disjointed sense of time.

Translating postmodern literary devices to music is a longstanding interest of mine, and here the most captivating challenge was to create a musical parallel for its unorthodox structure: two independent strands of narrative that converge towards the end of the book. The first of these, presented in straightforward chronological episodes, is rooted in 1950’s Manhattan, following the misadventures of Benny Profane and his cohorts in The Whole Sick Crew. The second thread features Herbert Stencil’s quest for a woman who appears in his father’s journals, known only by the initial V. The chapters recounting Stencil’s search jump freely through several eras of the past and multiple exotic locales—Egypt, Florence, Namibia, Paris, Malta—each a vignette with a new atmosphere and a sub- narrative of its own, loosely linked to the others only by a V-named woman who may or may not be the same in each instance...

The result is Convergence Lines, a piece in twelve parts, each lasting about two minutes. The odd-numbered episodes follow the New York storyline, often drawing inspiration from the sounds of 50’s American music: big band, salsa, jazz... These generally up-tempo and rhythmically intricate sections, often foregrounding the brass, are connected by shared material and sonorities, creating a sense of development and forward motion. Even-numbered sections on the other hand make no attempt to preserve continuity. Drawing on the novel’s fixation with travel-guide, romantic exoticism, each presents a self-contained, crystallized world with a sonic palette of its own. Material begins to progressively bleed over into adjacent sections as we approach the point of convergence (section XI.), where many previously-heard sounds interact—just before being subsumed by an intrusive wash of white, the closing whirlpool...

Another significant theme of V. is the widening divide between humanity and the inanimate, between man and machine. One musical translation of this idea is the use of mutes, preparations, and other unusual objects to physically alter the resonant properties of nearly all of the instruments. The brass play with multiple mutes, including a few functionally obsolete ones from the swing band era such as the cleartone and buzz-wow mutes. In the strings, preparations are even more extensive: paper, felt, and clothespins on the harp, clamps that buzz in the piano’s lowest register, a piece of aluminum foil wrapped around the low C string of the bass. Even percussion instruments are subject to washers and aluminum foil distorting the vibraphone’s resonance, needles and brushes rubbing almglocken and steel drums, thimbles places inside tuned cowbells for a prolonged rattle.

The second musical manifestation of the inanimate is provided by the electronics—a part constructed almost exclusively from prerecorded samples. Using the concatenative synthesis tool CataRT, samples (many of which were recorded in Lyon specifically for this project) are drawn from databases, selected according to search criteria, and retuned in real time to fit into a given pool of microtonal pitches. The result can be anything from a well-timed quick arpeggio to a kaleidoscopic effect, a swirl of changing colors which, when combined with the six-channel, encompassing spatialization, mirrors Pynchon’s breadth with its nearly cinematic scope. Longer sound files, also created from samples in OpenMusic (using SuperVP for retuning and OMPrisma for precise spatial movement). Two other important tools are the score follower Antescofo~, used for a precise rhythmic interplay in the odd-numbered movements, and live descriptor analysis, allowing the timbral characteristics of the live players to pilot the selected color, level, and timing of the playback samples.

I would like to thank the many musical and technical minds who contributed to this project, including Jean Bresson, Max Bruckert, Arshia Cont, José Echeveste, Martin Matalon, Marlon Schumacher, and Diemo Schwarz. Special thanks to James Giroudon at GRAME for providing unparalleled working conditions in the V-shaped city of Lyon, and above all to Christophe Lebreton, without whose expertise this piece would never have seen the light of day.

Convergence Lines was commissioned by GRAME in conjunction with the New Forum Jeune Création, and premiered 23 January, 2014 by the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain under Pierre-André Valade at the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin. Repeat performances were given on 4 February, 2014 at de Singel in Antwerp and 7 March 2014, as part of the Biennale Musiques en Scène in Lyon.
-----
CONVERGENCE LINES 
LISTENING GUIDE

I. APOCHEIR
The low point: Christmas Eve 1955 in a Norfolk sailor's bar. A slow climb back upwards, en route to New York City.
Big band brass hits with swing-era mutes pile up in dense rhythmic antiphony, toward a frenetic climax, an
accumulation of energy as the yo-yo snaps back to the palm.
II. SAND
Alexandria and Cairo at the end of the 19th century. The desert pours in from all sides. Muted violin and breathy flute intertwine against a backdrop of buzzes and sibilant grains.
III. MIRROR-TIME
An Upper West Side waiting room. The hourglass becomes a ticking clock, slipping out of phase. Cup mute chorales meet their reflections. Time reversed and forward time dovetail and overlap.
IV. COLORS
Florence in 1899, or the unexplored ends of the earth. An exotic wash of sonorities, mystical metallic shades— almglocken, steel drum, harp multiphonics—spinning
kaleidoscopic patterns, all formless texture and insinuation.
V. ROLLICKING
Sticks slapping skins. Subway trains shuttling
back and forth. A continuous zig-zag of sound bouncing
through harp glissandi, drum riffs, and Puerto Rican salsa.
VI. SFERICS
Southern Africa. Disturbances in the electromagnetic field: whistlers, tweeks, the dawn chorus. The crack of the sjambok. A prepared harp blends with distant mbiras. 
VII. SPHERE 
Piano center stage, an angular Monk-inspired solo.
Replies from a virtual counterpart, progressively dampened and deformed by objects placed on the strings. Interjections by a jazz natural horn trio.
VIII. ROCK
Malta, cryptic and remote, a fortified outcrop in the middle of the sea, isolated in space and in time.
A grounded meditation, smudged brass and solo strings over a peal of rattling cowbells and prepared percussion.
IX. INANIMATE
Lush chords dry out into thin clicks and thuds.
A vector from emotion to numbness, man to machine, pitch to noise—a step into the lifeless world of objects.
X. DECADENCE
Paris. Lush textures, shimmering showers of consonant ringing percussion, coins falling onto metal. Delicate melodies in flute and violin, an indulgent romantic atmosphere undermined
by a prosaic loop of muted piano and pizzicati, disillusioned and cold.
XI. VALLETTA
Convergence point. The grid of sandstone streets, sea vistas from the ramparts, meandering towards the tip of the peninsula. V-shaped patterns of confluence are everywhere: lines, material, spatialization—all move towards or fan out from a central target.
XII. EPILOGUE (VANISHING POINT)
A sudden blackout on the island. A slip back in time.
A water spout in the Mediterranean sinks a small wooden boat,
its dissolving vortex the last trace, a pinpoint the center of the map.

Convergence Lines

En collaboration avec Grame, les élèves en Master I de musicologie à l’ENS Lyon et les élèves en Master II de philosophie à l’Université Lyon 3 se réunissent au cours de plusieurs séances d’octobre 2023 à mai 2024 dans la perspective de croiser leurs regards, leurs réflexions et leurs analyses sur la création de l’opéra Otages, programmé dans la B!ME - Biennale des musiques exploratoires 2024.
Voici le 1er épisode présentant leur travail.
Montage et création sonore : Jean-Basile Sosa

Les podcasts de la création - Otages - 1er épisode

Jean-Pierre Quinquenel (Doctorant, Université Rennes 2)
Johannes Kreidler : créer c'est interpeller 
Johannes Kreidler est un compositeur contemporain. Il utilise le réseau Internet comme un laboratoire de formes et d’idées et comme une vitrine de sa créativité musicale. Il arbore ainsi la figure de l’artiste franc-tireur, pince-sans rire au ton mesuré et aux visages multiples. Mêlant visualisation de données et composition musicale, ses expérimentations sont à la croisée des genres : entre art et communication. 


Johannes Kreidler  créer c'est interpeller

KASPER T TOEPLITZ

Créé en 1982, GRAME - Générateur de Ressources et d’Activités Musicales Exploratoires - est labellisé Centre national de création musicale en 1997, label regroupant à ce jour 7 autres centres en France qui nourrissent la vitalité de la création musicale et sonore. GRAME est devenu au fil de son histoire un écosystème alimenté par la production et la création d’œuvres et d’idées nouvelles. Ses trois pôles création, recherche et transmission, en constante interaction, en font un lieu d’incubation, de rencontres créatives, de collaborations fertiles entre artistes créateur.rice.s, ingénieur.e.s et chercheur.se.s, médiateur.rice.s, enseignant.e.s, formateur.rice.s, étudiante.s et publics.

Les podcasts de la création - Otages - 1er épisode

Grame Lyon

Related tracks