No, I haven't got hold of a physical copy of this - it may be a while yet before those start to find their way out of Eastern Europe - but (as McC pointed out to me the other day) the whole thing is now available on Youtube (and no doubt elsewhere). So as much as I can't vouch for what - if anything - the liner notes will clarify for us, I have listened to the whole album now; and, if I don't yet have a clear explanation for what was going on with the music, I do at least have a working hypothesis...
I pondered recently how we might interpret the meaning of "track titles"* such as Composition No. 366b (+214, 365b) or Composition No. 364e (+346, 363a). Bear in mind, these are both to be found within a release entitled 12 Duets (DCWM) 2012 - of course, anyone can see right away that in each case, one of the territories listed is actually a GTM piece**; still, that in itself is hardly problematic. A performance from 2000 of the second-species GTM piece Comp. 277 incorporates as tertiary material Comps. 6n and 40(o), among others; the reading of Comp. 278 from the same occasion includes Comps. 114, 23c and 40i***, but this does not somehow rule out the classification of the performances themselves as GTM. So, there is no inherent reason why a DCWM performance might not utilise part of a GTM score as tertiary material; indeed, by this stage it seems to be par for the course that many such readings do just that.
But what are we to make of the presence of the other opus numbers thrown into the mix? The 2016 Brazilian release Ao Vivo Jazz Na Fábrica goes much further, presenting us with the intimidating rubrics Composition No.366d (+214, 366e, 366f, 366g) and Composition No.367b (+70, 364g, 365a, 366b). These latter performances are again primarily to be considered as DCWM, but are we really to understand that the musicians worked from four different DCWM scores in each case, as well as the listed tertiary material? Are the listed works from the 36x range themselves to be considered as tertiary material? How would that even work? Many questions here, and no particularly obvious answers.
Oh, and just to make matters more complicated again, I had already remarked back in August that opus numbers within the exact same range might appear under the aegis of Falling River Music instead...
- Lo and behold, with perfect timing we are then presented with a new release of four full-length recordings from 2013, which might be DCWM or FRM or - somehow - both at once. The label certainly seems to want the listener to think of this as an example of FRM, whilst I have already observed that the music sounds like DCWM; that latter observation was of course based on just a few short samples. However, now that I have heard the entire thing from start to finish, I can confirm that this is definitely Diamond Curtain Wall Music, with all four pieces featuring the "classic" SuperCollider sound (as heard on numerous previous recordings). So, has someone just made an embarrassing error, confusing two different strategies within B's compendious musical system? That is of course possible, but I'm disinclined to think the answer is that simple.
The programme for the new release is as follows:
1. Composition 364F (+364G +272)
2. Composition 366E (+220)
3. Composition 364E (+367B +366D +264)
4. Composition 363A (+363H +219)
- which is to say, it's all very similar (at least on the face of it) to the 12-disc 2012 release... which was, just to remind ourselves, packaged as DCWM. The template: a primary territory in the 36x range is presented along with at least one other such territory, plus a GTM territory as (presumably) tertiary material. (It will be noted that disc 2 on this album doesn't follow that same pattern, listing only the primary territory plus a tertiary; there, at least, I am inclined to think that a simple mistake could have been made.)
The music, too, sounds indubitably like DCWM from the get-go. As I say, this already appeared to be the case from the sound samples I had found online; but hearing the complete performances just underlines and reconfirms that impression. There is no doubt about it. I can unequivocally state that... ah, but, but. After all this time, can I really be that sure about anything, where the maestro's music is concerned? It's probably best if I back away from that. What does an open ear tell me, at this point?
The first impression, though, is just what I said above: this is not FRM, but rather DCWM. As previously mentioned, it's not even "experimental" DCWM - such as can be found on some of the discs in the 2012 set; the soundscape generated by the SuperCollider software here is effectively indistinguishable from that used in the very earliest DCWM performances. What is different, of course, is the instrumentation: with no disrespect at all to Taylor Ho Bynum or Mary Halvorson, it is rather refreshing to hear some "new" voices interpreting this stuff. (For a number of years it looked impossible for a recording of this type to exist without THB's involvement... It's another reason why the 2012 box was so invigorating#.) The music kept drawing my attention in, not for the overall shape of it - which remains pretty much beyond my understanding at this stage - so much as for fabulous details in the playing. The sounds - the human-generated sounds - are consistently fresh and intriguing. In particular, Roland Dahinden's range of extended techniques really gets showcased on these recordings; in fact all three players are on peak form for this## - it just so happens that I was especially captivated by the trombone wizardry. Anyone who might be wondering whether the quality of the musicianship here warrants checking out the whole recording can rest assured that they will find no shortage of marvellous moments...
... and I did take note of some of these while I was listening; but it would be an unnecessary distraction to go into them here, because none of that is directly relevant to the question of what this release might tell us.
I wasn't very far into the first piece before I realised I was just listening to the instrumentalists, without any electronics. I hadn't been giving the music my undivided attention, so it was more the less the case that shortly after I figured out what I was hearing, SuperCollider patched back in and the temporary spell was broken; however, it wasn't more than a few minutes before the same thing happened again, and now that I was primed to notice, I found quite a few examples of such passages.
What that got me wondering, of course, was whether these "unaccompanied" sections might not be where the FRM strategies were being deployed.
Here, then, is the hypothesis: these four pieces - or at least three of them! - may be "hybrid" performances, in which the first territory listed is to be interpreted under DCWM protocols, and the secondary territory/-ies as FRM; tertiary material will presumably always remain just that, as with any other long-form performance. If this is correct then we can pretty safely assume that whenever the software drops out of the mix, the music system has itself reverted to the secondary type and a different score is being used for that. As I say, this is all hypothetical; but it would explain why the interactive software frequently vanishes from the soundscape, and it would also shed light on why FRM is now being talked about in the promotional material, given that it has never previously been associated with the use of SuperCollider.
It's an idea, anyway... and naturally, once it had occurred to me, I found myself wondering whether some other (later) DCWM works - or rather other works which I had assumed were DCWM - might not be set up the same way; although that possibility really raises more questions than it answers, since surely we would expect there to have been some mention of it before now. Releases such as the 2012 box itself, or the duo with Miya Masaoka, might seem tempting places to look for further evidence to support the hypothesis; but, with those all comprising duets, it must surely be pretty obvious if the software falls silent for any length of time. (The Brazilian release, on the other hand... I only heard that once, around a year ago, and can I say for sure that I would have noticed if there were prolonged passages with no SuperCollider..?)
So, of course my next task - in this regard at least! - is twofold: firstly to read the full liners for the PMP box, as soon as they become available to me, and secondly to keep a close ear out for any other "DCWM-primary" performances which follow the template outlined above. - Needless to say, the other three readings in the new box did indeed follow this template; or rather, the third and fourth did, whilst the second did a bit, but to a lesser extent. Here, when I finally encountered a sustained passage with no electronics I was left to suppose that it represented the point at which the tertiary material - in this case, the SGTM piece Comp. 220 - was being exploited; that really was a best guess, though, and in practice I can't hazard much of a guess as to how instrumentalists would begin to render material designed specifically for the human voice (and including actual syllables, etc), B's general principle of "anything can fit anywhere" notwithstanding###. Even though the second disc is the shortest, by a few minutes, and even though it seemed to incorporate fewer moments of "human-only" activity, I am still not 100% convinced that the published track listing - with only two territories for the second piece, but four for the third - is actually correct and not some sort of mistake.
Anyway, that's what all this has left me thinking about, and since the post on Comp. 136 is theoretically ready, but doesn't seem to want to be written quite yet - THAT feels awfully familiar - I figured I would squeeze this in first. Regardless of whether any other friendly experiencers feel like wading into the theoretical waters with me, listening to this album purely for the music will surely repay their time.
* This term seems pitifully inadequate, and it irritates me a little that I can't think of anything better just at the moment...
** 214 is first species, first unveiled as one of the "Yoshi's ninetets"; 346 is third species, probably (...) accelerator class, and can be found as a primary territory here and here, having also seen quite a bit of use as a tertiary. (The composition index by RYM user smartpatrol - as mentioned in the last post, section 2 - was useful at this juncture. Nice one, whoever you are...)
*** In these - and all analogous - instances, tertiary materials never get listed; we are left to catch them as they drift past the ear. It occurs to me that this may be at least partly because they are not (or not always) pre-selected, but may be thrown in ad hoc by sections, or by individual players as the case may be. (Does that mean that if a piece is listed, it's not actually "tertiary material" at all, but something else altogether? My head hurts...)
# Of course, of B's three duet-partners in that box, one of them - bassoonist Katherine Young - had taken part in (group) DCWM previously. (She still seemed like quite a bold choice for a duettist, though. Bassoon is not the most versatile of instruments, especially if we compare it with the human voice, or with the violin...)
## It scarcely needs saying that B. himself is always on "peak form". I mean, you find me an example - any time after 1970, or thereabouts - of a date when he wasn't. I've remarked before that he may (notionally) have an "A game" and an "A+ game", but nothing like a "B game" really (lame pun not intended). Still and all, there were many occasions while listening to these four long pieces that I found myself thinking "wow, that just sounds fantastic" - so it feels only appropriate to flag up the overall quality of the playing here.
### Two of the "extra" territories fall into this precise category: disc four uses 219. (The other two use second-species GTM works; 265 is SGTM, but 264 is not.) Obviously, (parts of) any score can be deployed in any context, but the use of vocal pieces in a purely-instrumental context does seem a trifle perverse, although... Comp. 173 has been interpreted both ways, and at varying length... I daresay nothing about this need surprise me, at this point...
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