Merging 20th Century Art Music and Pre-recorded Sound: 17 Pieces
The research investigates the relationship between acousmatic music and instrumental music, using developments in 20th century western art music to define its context including the compositional practices of Arnold Schoenberg (d.1951), Claude Debussy (d.1918), Nikolai Roslavets (d.1944), Luigi Nono (d.1990), Iannis Xenakis (d.2001) and Natasha Barrett (1972-). This was a practice-based PhD resulting in the creation of a series of new compositions for a variety of forces that addressed the following research questions: 1. What have been the problematics of the development of compositions for acousmatic and acoustic instrumental forces and how are these present in the work of the key practitioners referenced above? 2. What are the cultural conditions that have precipitated the perpetuation of the problematisation of the relationship between acousmatic and acoustic compositional practices? 3. Is it possible to generate a series of original sound compositions that explore and provide potential solutions to the problematic at the core of the research? The pieces that where investigated and referenced were: Claude Debussy: Nuages, movement 1 from Trois Nocturnes Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 Nikolai Roslavets: 5 Preludes, In the Hours of the New Moon Luigi Nono: Intolleranza 1960, La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura Iannis Xenakis: Pour la paix (musique concrète/choral), Diamorphoses (musique concrète) Natasha Barrett: Submerged (acousmatic), Little Animals (acousmatic) The research determined which techniques work well together to create original and balanced art music, and explored different ways of creating dialogue between sound-objects and instruments. The techniques under investigation, to use with music for orchestra and tape, are Debussy's chromatic mediant relations, Schoenberg's 12-tone serial techniques, Roslavets's transpositional near symmetry by quints, extreme orthography and synthetic chords, Nono's narrow-banding of note groups and the idea of democratic lines, Xenakis's atonal architectural techniques like unions (intersections) and differences of sets, and Natasha Barrett's coarticulation of sound-objects.
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