Almost New York
CD 1 - Twonings: Charles Curtis, cello; Joseph Kubera,
piano; Almost New York: Robert Dick, flutes; Broken
Line: Robert Dick, flute; Danny Tunick, vibraphone; Joseph
Kubera, piano
CD 2 - Coda Variations: Robin Hayward, tuba
Pogus is extremely delighted to release this 2 CD set of
recordings of works by Alvin Lucier.
He is one of the key experimental artists of the 20th and 21st
centuries, and is one of my favorite composers. A unique and
individual artist: No one sounds quite like Alvin Lucier.
Lucier writes about the genesis of the works on this release:
"Since the early 1980's I have made a series of works for
conventional musical instruments. Before that time I had been
mainly occupied with the exploration of such phenomena as
echolocation, brain waves, room acoustics and the visual
representation of sound. Often these works required special
equipment-hand held pulse wave oscillators (Vespers),
differential amplifiers (Music for Solo Performer), horseshoe
magnets (Music on a Long Thin Wire). Then players began
asking me for pieces. Now I needed to find a way of achieving the
same poetry with acoustic instruments as I did with electronic
means.
"One of the things I discovered was that players could create
rhythmic patterns by closely tuning with electronically generated
pure waves or with each other, producing audible beats. Often, to
get continuous motion, I have one or more voices sweep up or down
at various speeds against fixed sustained pitches. As a wave
approaches a sustained pitch the audible beating slows down to zero
when it reaches unison, then speeds up again as the wave leaves the
pitch. Almost New York employs slow sweep pure wave
oscillators, Broken Line, flute glissandi. In
Twonings two different tuning systems collide and in
Coda Variations slight variations in pitch are heard
chronologically."
Recorded by Charles Curtis, Joseph Kubera, Robert Dick, Danny
Tunick, and Robin Hayward - some of the leading new music
performers of our era, these works are essential additions to the
Alvin Lucier oeuvre, as well as satisfying anyone interested in
great experimental music.
