I attended an event hosted by UVa New Music Ensemble. The name of this event was "A Night of New Music with Christian Wolff." The event consisted of members of the UVa New Music Ensemble performing pieces they had created in according to compositions of pieces which were created by Christian Wolff. There were also pieces such as a piano piece which were both composed and performed by Christian Wolff; however, the majority of the pieces were performed by students in the music department at UVa.
A common characteristic of Wolff's music is his incorporation of various freedoms given to the performers at performance time. This allows for any one piece to have the ability to produce variable results. One such way in which this is accomplished is through the ability of Wolff's pieces to be performed using non-musical instruments. This allows the performers the use of practically any item to produce the sounds for his piece. These features of Wolff's pieces lead me to make the connection between his style of composition and Musique Concrete.
The event often employed a style seen in Musique Concrete in which the compositional material is not limited to the use or inclusion of musical instruments or voices nor to elements traditionally thought of as musical in nature, for example melody. This was shown in multiple pieces specifically Stones and Exercise No. 1 performed by the students at UVa.
In the first of these performances, students relied solely upon the use of stones, often incorporating them with other non-musical instrumentation, to create the piece. They accomplished this in a number of ways: often by simply hitting two rocks together, hitting one against a metal tub, rubbing the rock against the table, and dropping large quantities of tiny rocks into the metal tub. This provided them with a variety of sounds that they pieced together to create their performance. The use of these stones, not traditionally considered a musical instrument, directly correlates with the Musique Concrete notion of creating sound without being limited to the use of traditional musical instruments.
The second performance which featured a Musique Concrete style of composition was that of Exercise No. 1. This piece was created for variable, unspecified instrumentation and the performance of the piece accomplished exactly that. The performers relied on a variety of common items to produce the sounds used for their piece. For example, one such item used throughout the piece was that of an instrument case in which the opening and closing of Velcro pockets along with the zipping and unzipping of the case were used for the production of sounds. As with his piece Stones this is also indicative of the correlation between Wolff's style of composition and the fundamental beliefs of Musique Concrete. The performers of this piece relied on the use of items not traditionally used in musical composition and thought to be a musical instrument.
Through performances such as those referenced above, this event and the performances there expressed to me a distinct similarity between common features and characteristics of Wolff's pieces and Musique Concrete.
A common characteristic of Wolff's music is his incorporation of various freedoms given to the performers at performance time. This allows for any one piece to have the ability to produce variable results. One such way in which this is accomplished is through the ability of Wolff's pieces to be performed using non-musical instruments. This allows the performers the use of practically any item to produce the sounds for his piece. These features of Wolff's pieces lead me to make the connection between his style of composition and Musique Concrete.
The event often employed a style seen in Musique Concrete in which the compositional material is not limited to the use or inclusion of musical instruments or voices nor to elements traditionally thought of as musical in nature, for example melody. This was shown in multiple pieces specifically Stones and Exercise No. 1 performed by the students at UVa.
In the first of these performances, students relied solely upon the use of stones, often incorporating them with other non-musical instrumentation, to create the piece. They accomplished this in a number of ways: often by simply hitting two rocks together, hitting one against a metal tub, rubbing the rock against the table, and dropping large quantities of tiny rocks into the metal tub. This provided them with a variety of sounds that they pieced together to create their performance. The use of these stones, not traditionally considered a musical instrument, directly correlates with the Musique Concrete notion of creating sound without being limited to the use of traditional musical instruments.
The second performance which featured a Musique Concrete style of composition was that of Exercise No. 1. This piece was created for variable, unspecified instrumentation and the performance of the piece accomplished exactly that. The performers relied on a variety of common items to produce the sounds used for their piece. For example, one such item used throughout the piece was that of an instrument case in which the opening and closing of Velcro pockets along with the zipping and unzipping of the case were used for the production of sounds. As with his piece Stones this is also indicative of the correlation between Wolff's style of composition and the fundamental beliefs of Musique Concrete. The performers of this piece relied on the use of items not traditionally used in musical composition and thought to be a musical instrument.
Through performances such as those referenced above, this event and the performances there expressed to me a distinct similarity between common features and characteristics of Wolff's pieces and Musique Concrete.
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