A passage from Ariadne's Thread (1994), for string quartet and quadraphonic computer sound. As recorded by the Arditti Quartet for a double-CD of Reynolds's string music. (290K, 01:58.8)
CD: Quatour Arditti/Roger Reynolds
Label: Auvidis / Naïve MO 782083

Ariadne's Thread

Movement VI, "The Portrait's Will To Endure"

Whispers Out Of Time, Movement VI

Roger Reynolds: composer, writer, producer and mentor, pioneer in sound spatialization, intermedia and also algorithmic concepts, an inveterate synthesizer of diverse capacities and perspectives. His notorious (1961) composition, “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” which uses graphic notation to depict performer location on a stage, was widely imitated. In it, eight singers and a jazz trio gloss, while musically manifesting, a Wallace Stevens poem. In fact, Reynolds’s work often arises out of text. One of his Ircam commissions, “Odyssey” (1989-93) sets a bilingual Beckett text; his Pulitzer prize-winning composition, “Whispers Out of Time,” for string orchestra, muses over a poem by John Ashbery. The FLiGHT project arose out of a collection of texts that stretches from Plato to astronaut Michael Collins. This body of work demonstrates how seamlessly text, electroacoustic resources, and novel presentation strategies can be melded with live instrumental and vocal performance.

Ariadne's Thread

Roger Reynolds

Related tracks