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Jean Schwarz: “Hiver” (“Winter,” excerpt)
From the album Quatre Saisons (1982)
This is an unusual piece of electronic music in that it is explicitly modeled on a genre of 19th-century European classical music. Whereas most electronic works tend to avoid such associations, in Quatre Saisons Jean Schwarz boldly sets out to compose “a fresco comparable to a Lied“— based on a poem by Goethe, no less.
Schwarz writes in the liner notes:
The theme of the “Four Seasons” is sufficiently general to lend itself to electroacoustic experiments. The writing of the vocal part is intentionally traditional to the degree that it remains lyrical and does not require any effects, in keeping with the spirit of the German Lieder. The four movements are preceded by a tonal introduction which undergoes a gradual transition toward a dense material enriched with computer sounds. WINTER is the season of denudation and reflection— the voice opposes its warmth to the season’s chill.
The timbral contrast of the the lyrical singing voice and the atonal, metallic electronic sounds endows “Hiver” with a powerful but understated expressive force that must be delicately absorbed and allowed to unfold.
Played 100 time(s).
November 30, 2009, 9:53pm
