infotext:
MUSIC AND LYRICS IN AN UNUSUAL LIAISON The problem of understanding has become the subject of various discourses in recent art studies, ranging to theories of non-understanding or illegibility. Music, as the most abstract of all arts, has always carried with it a considerable degree of vagueness. Today, not least thanks to research in the fields of sound and speech synthesis, the established possibilities for a liaison between literature and music have expanded. They range from the conventional setting of texts to the most varied degrees of clarity of the resonating of words in music. Texts can be acoustically inaudible and yet present in their semantics. And this extreme case can mean that all the usual modalities of understanding are undermined in order to open up a new intensity of perception. All of this also describes the starting point for dealing with the work created between 2003 and 2006 From Trachila by Thomas Hummel like the fact that the composer has often searched for new connections between language and music in an original way. This tendency in his work culminated for the first time in the orchestral work Nicanor (1996/97), in which he translates certain words into instrumental sounds using a method he developed himself, far removed from traditional forms of program music, i.e. far beyond associative sound painting. was it in Nicanor the famous novel The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez, from whom Hummel took his starting point From Trachila now on two different literary works that are far apart in time: on the one hand on Ovid's depressing songs of grief, on the other hand on the highly successful novel, which is often described as typically postmodern the last world by the Austrian author Christoph Ransmayr from 1988. A decisive impetus for Hummel's linking of these elements lies in the fact that Ransmayr's narrative work, which virtuosically oscillates between the ancient world and the present, is about the poet Ovid and his metamorphoses is one of the most widely read epic works of antiquity. In the passage that inspired Hummel, Ovid's Roman friend Cotta goes in search of the poet who is said to have taken refuge in a hermitage called “Trachila”. Thomas Hummel takes up this element of the expectant search. He reflects this in the form of his composition and himself says that Cotta's journey is just as different as his own piece From Trachila turns out to be a winding path through times and cultures and their languages. Taking up this hint, one can first emphasize the tendency towards quasi-prismatic refraction and artistic concealment. Thomas Hummel also takes up the idea of constant transformation, the aesthetic core of Ovid's metamorphosis concept and a stimulus for artists of all disciplines since Goethe's time. It manifests itself equally as a moment of tension generation and aesthetic openness - the latter in the sense of a permanent search movement that can be experienced in a highly suggestive way when listening to the work. Foreignness is one of the themes of this piece. It particularly includes the articulation of language, which alternates between clear distinctions and transformations into sounds, and thus constantly raises the question of what the perception of language actually means. But it can also be related to the virtuosic handling of timbres, with the usual timbres of instruments being given equal weight with unusual and distorted playing styles. Language and music come together in a fascinating way in the first of the four movements of this composition, when the speaker has to articulate the Ovid text in such a way that it resembles the timbre of the orchestra. Only in further sentences does the text become clearly semantically perceptible. Thomas Hummel is trained in strict scientific thinking through his education and many years of work as a music IT specialist. And he is always able to make this thinking productive for his composition. This affects in From Trachila as in some other recent works, especially in the conscious calculation of listening attention when dealing with text and music. Based on research on aesthetic perception and in particular on the differences between visual and acoustic perception, Hummel's music comes to amazing sound connections, which plays with the possibility of comparative memory as well as with the "wandering" of attention - and precisely on such paths a special one musical intensity developed. Jörn-Peter Hiekel
THOMAS HUMMEL: ON THE RECORDING PROCESS The production of From Trachila is a recording technique experiment that was probably carried out for the first time on this scale. It is an attempt at the hyper-realistic rendering of a work. With the method used here, each part of the orchestra is recorded separately according to direction, musically adapted and spatialized. Specially developed programs help with the import and the manual placement of all parts and make the enormous complexity of the task manageable. With this innovation, a high degree of precision and transparency of the interpretation can be achieved. In the surround version of the recording, the listener is virtually in the middle of the orchestra. The production is dedicated to the cellist Claudius von Wrochem, who accompanied the project in an encouraging and enabling manner. |
program:
[01-04] 59:14 From Trachila
A hyper-realistic recording
for speakers and ensemble
Christopher Ogiermann, voice artist
Holst Sinfonietta
Press:
11/12.2009
Hummel describes Aus Trachila, subtitled “Searching for the Missing Ovid,” as “an experiment in recording technique.” By this, he means he has tried to achieve what he calls a “hyper-realistic” recording of a piece of music. Each instrument of the ensemble is recorded separately with the conductor, then musically adapted and “spacialized.” Computer software developed specifically for this process is employed. Presented in surround sound, the effect is to place the listener amidst the orchestra. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the piece was three years in the making (2003–06). Following on from his 1996–97 piece, Nicanor, Hummel experiments in Aus Trachila with the relationship between speech and music, translating certain words into the sounds of instruments. For Nicanor, Hummel took as his point of departure the novel The Autumn of the Patriarch (Gabriel Garcia Márquez), whereas here his influences were Songs of Dolour (Ovid) and the postmodern novel The Last World by Christoph Ransmayr. The link between the two is that Ransmayr's novel moves between present and ancient times, referring to Ovid's Metamorphoses in the process. Cotta goes in search of Ovid and finds him in a hermitage called Trachila, hence the title of Hummel's piece. It is the element of search that specifically inspired Hummel.
Christoph Ogiermann is referred to as a “voice artist.” The texts themselves can only be heard in any sort of clear way in the second, third, and fourth movements. When they do come into focus, the effect can be shattering. In the first movement, though, the voice artist becomes a member of the ensemble. Given that Hummel has embarked on research in aesthetic perception, it is no surprise that such manipulations of timbre and, indeed, expectations of role, form a central part of his thinking. The resultant sonorities can be surprising and, at times, downright disturbing. Altered sounds can take on an otherworldly aspect, somewhat akin to Stockhausen's sonic explorations.
The work is actually scored for speakers, 18 musicians, playback, and video, although obviously the video element is absent here. The result is stimulating, fresh, and uncompromising music recorded in state-of-the-art sound. A complete list of Hummel's works can be found at his informative web site, www.thomashummel.net/, where one can also download a PDF of his complex article, “Simulation of Human Voice Timbre by Orchestration of Acoustic Music Instruments.”
Colin Clarke
09/09
