the rain of alphabets / Michael Pisaro
In Memoriam Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011)
work
the rain of alphabets
author
Michael Pisaro
year
2005
description
the rain of alphabets, for 14 musicians, is part of harmony series [2004-2006], a collection of 34 pieces composed as a display of the question of how do we harmonize? This question is the trace of the encounter with the work Swell Piece for Alison Knowles [1967] by James Tenney. the rain of alphabets is inspired by a poem by Inger Christensen [Denmark, 1935-2009]:
alphabets exists
the rain of alphabets
incessant rain
grace light
intervals and forms
of stones and stars
courses of rivers and
motions of mind
tracks of animals
their routes and ways
nest-building
human solace
daylight in air
sign of the hawk
union in color
of sunlight and eye
wild chamomile
at houses’ doorways
snowbanks wind
houses corners sparrows
The score stipulated as a structure a segmented sum of musicians, tones and times set chronometrically: first a musician, then two musicians, then three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen. First a tone, then two tones each musician, three tones each musician, and so on. First a minute, then two, then three, provided with a two-minute pause after each section is completed. In musicians: 1, 2, 3, ….13 and 14. In tones: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121, 144, 169 and 196. In stopwatch: 1 ‘(2’) 2 ‘(2’) 3 ‘(2’) 4 ‘(2’) 5 ‘(2’) 6 ‘(2’) 7 ‘(2’) 8 ‘(2’ ) 9 ‘(2’) 10 ‘(2’) 11 ‘(2’) 12 ‘(2’) 13 ‘(2’) 14 ‘(2’). The play ends at 133 minutes, ie. two hours and thirteen minutes after the start.
But the number is not the experience.
In the words of Pisaro: “A work is the contact made by the score (or any possible kind of musical structuring) and sounds (and performers and actions) under the condition of the site.” The increase in harmonic density is the intensification of a time-intensive experience – not only two-minute breaks are abbreviated: the experience of a long time becomes elastic.
We decided to place the musicians in different parts of the exhibition hall of the gallery, freely using a transparent sheet with points from the score Fontana Mix [1958] by John Cage, overlapping the sheet to a rough plan of the room. What initially was a strategic decision to break with the traditional management of large groups of musicians (an orchestra), was transformed with the performance on a very different way to experience harmony. Although Western harmony, thanks to musical notation, is conceptualized as a vertical phenomenon, that Friday, little by little, it appeared as a horizontal harmony of fields and areas, gas and topography simultaneously, or poetically imagined:
” courses of rivers and
motions of mind
tracks of animals
their routes and ways”
NCD
the players
Santiago Astaburuaga, Nicolás Carrasco, Sebastián Carrasco, Álvaro Castro, Renzo Filinich, Sebastián Jatz, Fernanda Ortega, Álvaro Pacheco, Alejandro Palacios, Camila Pérez, Gonzalo Ramírez, Marcelo Troncoso, Benjamín Vergara y Paulina Wiehoff
the instruments
electric bass, 2 mouth organs, 3 trumpets, dulcimer, 2 laptops, accordion, 2 violins, acoustic guitar and cello
place
AFA Gallery, Santiago, Chile
date
August 26th, 2011
time
from 17:00 to 19:30
duration
133 minutes
the audience
general audience
audio (recorded on Zoom H4n)
video
1.- 10 tones, 10 minutes, 10 musicians
2.- 11 tones, 11 minutes, 11 musicians
