# 'Otherworldly' music?



## neofite (Feb 19, 2017)

Is there a word or phrase in English (or perhaps some other language) that describes music that is produced using conventional instruments in unusual ways and/or using other objects in order to create sounds unlike those in classical, popular, ethnic or other conventional styles? I have been listening to Franck Bedrossian and Ann Cleare recently. The closest I can come is 'otherworldly.'

When did this type of music emerge? Is it now a trend, or will it become a trend? Would it be classified as a subset of so-called _contemporary classical_ music? Is it becoming a new class of tools for composers to use to a limited extent in their otherwise more conventional new works? Can or should any classical rules of composition structure or harmony be applied if one is composing such a work?


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

The term 'saturationism', or 'saturation' is sometimes used to describe the technique and aesthetics of Franck Bedrossian, Dmitri Kourliandski, Raphael Cendo and some others. Their idea is to build music from complex timbres, sounds which are sometimes so totally saturated that the fundamental pitch itself cannot be heard, leaving only its overtones exposed. According to musicologist Giacomo Fronzi, "'Saturationist' music is characterised by tension towards the increase and freeing of energy, by means of the extensive use of instruments. The result is the creation of paroxysmal musical contexts of great impact, seeming to offer a new, original, contemporary horror vacui, the musical alter ego of the high complexity of today's world." Bedrossian himself has described the paradigm this way: "Le principe de saturation du timbre affecte les instruments eux-mêmes de façon individuelle. […] De cette recherche découlent de nouveaux timbres associés à de nouvelles techniques de jeu pour toutes les familles d'instruments. L'écriture même des symboles musicaux s'en trouve remise en question. Ce qui découle de cette action, ce n'est pas seulement une distorsion instrumentale mais la découverte d'un nouveau territoire sonore" (The principle of timbre saturation affects the instruments themselves, in an individual way. […] This research generates new timbres associated to new playing technics for all the families of instruments. The writing of symbols itself becomes problematic).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm just listening to Bedrossian's Tracés d’ombres for the first time now, and it sounds good, but it sounds as though it's doing what Holliger and Lachenmann did. Is that right, or is there something new here in the way he's using instruments?

Maybe Tracés d’ombres isn't the best place to hear the ideas.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Well, here is Bedrossian's explanation of what he is trying to do in _Tracés d'ombres_: "L'unité du son d'un quatuor à cordes nécessite que les couleurs et les contrastes proviennent également d'une richesse de la polyphonie. Pour cette raison, je souhaitais que l'énergie présente dans le son se déploie et qu'elle innerve les lignes individuelles tracées par les instruments, plus encore que dans mes œuvres précédentes. Le titre lui-même évoque précisément cette dimension de l'écriture et son développement. La trajectoire de ce quatuor, en trois mouvements enchaînés, expose une situation musicale très dense, déclinée à des vitesses différentes. De fait, le matériau sonore est articulé dans un ralentissement extrême lors de la deuxième partie, tandis que le foisonnement des figures musicales est soumis à une accélération radicale lors du dernier épisode. Ainsi, la vitesse et l'idée de saturation, étroitement liées, jouent ici un rôle structurel et dynamique."

The work of Bedrossian, Raphaël Cendo, Yann Robin and the rest can certainly be seen as emerging from a context that not only accommodates them, but has favored their emergence. This context includes Italian noise music, musique concrète on tape, the Polish school's clusters, spectral music, Xenakis's totalist approach, as well as Lachenmann's "concrete instrumental music".

If _Tracés d'ombres_ doesn't quite do the trick for you, you might try Cendo's _In Vivo_ (2008-2011).


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I can think of two examples of music produced using conventional instruments in unusual ways. The first is music for prepared piano - adding things like paper clips, screws, and other junk to the strings and making some really weird sounds.






Another is called multiphonics, in particular those created on the bassoon using special fingerings. It's astonishing how much music is written for this effect and how many players actually take time to learn it. I think it's disgusting and vulgar.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Well, here is Bedrossian's explanation of what he is trying to do in _Tracés d'ombres_: "L'unité du son d'un quatuor à cordes nécessite que les couleurs et les contrastes proviennent également d'une richesse de la polyphonie. Pour cette raison, je souhaitais que l'énergie présente dans le son se déploie et qu'elle innerve les lignes individuelles tracées par les instruments, plus encore que dans mes œuvres précédentes. Le titre lui-même évoque précisément cette dimension de l'écriture et son développement. La trajectoire de ce quatuor, en trois mouvements enchaînés, expose une situation musicale très dense, déclinée à des vitesses différentes. De fait, le matériau sonore est articulé dans un ralentissement extrême lors de la deuxième partie, tandis que le foisonnement des figures musicales est soumis à une accélération radicale lors du dernier épisode. Ainsi, la vitesse et l'idée de saturation, étroitement liées, jouent ici un rôle structurel et dynamique."
> 
> The work of Bedrossian, Raphaël Cendo, Yann Robin and the rest can certainly be seen as emerging from a context that not only accommodates them, but has favored their emergence. This context includes Italian noise music, musique concrète on tape, the Polish school's clusters, spectral music, Xenakis's totalist approach, as well as Lachenmann's "concrete instrumental music".
> 
> If _Tracés d'ombres_ doesn't quite do the trick for you, you might try Cendo's _In Vivo_ (2008-2011).


Cheers, I thought Tracés d'ombres was outstanding, I just didn't hear a specially distinctive voice.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

This has a bit more character, Maps of Non-Existent Cities: Berlin for solo violin by Dmitri Kourliandski


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> This has a bit more character, Maps of Non-Existent Cities: Berlin for solo violin by Dmitri Kourliandski[/video]


Might we call that a piece high in saturated timbre?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Might we call that a piece high in saturated timbre?


It is if you turn up the volume.

It's so strange listening to contemporary music, where there are no signposts, no canons, there are so many composers all available from your computer, and the most unexpected things can actually be stimulating.


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> I'm just listening to Bedrossian's Tracés d'ombres for the first time now, and it sounds good, but it sounds as though it's doing what Holliger and Lachenmann did. Is that right, or is there something new here in the way he's using instruments?
> 
> Maybe Tracés d'ombres isn't the best place to hear the ideas.


I've only heard a couple pieces by Cendo and one of Yann Robin's works, so I don't know too much. But for me, though Cendo and Robin continue Lachenmann's instrumental concrete music, I think what is new is how effectively they achieve it. Some of the sounds in Lachenmann's early period, for example, sound tame and and uninspired compared to what's coming out of instrumental music today (don't read that as a knock on Lachenmann's music, I think he's a great composer).

Also, I'm not sure Lachenmann was as concerned with how instruments combined to create unusual timbres; just going by ear alone, what I hear in Lachenmann is how you can produce unusual sounds in a *single* instrument, and the musical lines seem a bit more independent of one another, if that makes sense. Lachenmann seems to be thinking more horizontally, whereas in later composers, there seems to be a bit more verticality in the music. And in the case of Cendo, Robin, Bedrossian, I think they're taking that verticality to the extreme in overwhelming you with an ocean of timbre.


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