Search - Babbitt, Bettina, Reynolds :: Electro Acoustic Music: Classics

This is a fantastic disc.

05/22/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Electronic music is probably the most stylistically broad category in music. It might be more accurate to describe electronic music as a medium. But even that medium is diverse. Before there was Kraftwerk, before there was Gary Numan, there was Edgard Varese recording real world sounds on magnetic tape and manipulating them into landscapes. The result was an 8 minute "poeme" that many consider to be a watershed moment in 20th century music. I'm not sure if Milton Babbitt really earned the double billing he receives on this collection. Phonemena is a Babbittonian bubbling pitter-patter between two voices, Judith Bettina and an RCA mark II synthesizer recorded in magnetic tape. As a stand-alone work it deserves respect and has moments of brilliance, but it doesn't compare to the sonic adventure in Philomel. Philomel is much bolder, using recorded electronic sound as well as manipulated voice to accompany the soloist (also voice) with hair-raising effect. Roger Reynold's composition involves no prerecorded material and actually doesn't use a synthesizer in the classical sense. Instead, the flute soloist plays and his music is "sampled," manipulated, and played back over a multichannel system, making the soloist the accompaniment as well. The result: straightforward flute solo that turns into a flute duet, then a flute trio that morphs into a resonating sea of sound, some of it flute-like some more like chimes or who knows what. At any rate it is lyrical and beautiful. Xenakis's work has a simple principle: Draw something and turn it into sound. So Xenakis drew a score. It looks like a series of clouds, puffs of smoke, eyes, fingers, and swiss cheese (there's also some hair, I think). What does it sound like? Pretty noisy, but also really cool. Buzzing bees, static, humming planes. Half of the fun is listening while following the shapes on the score, included in the excellent insert. One warning to prospective buyers: this is not popular music, not rhythm and bass, not love ballads, not easy listening or new age. In other words, none of it has a beat. You can't dance to it. Got the idea? Some of it is downright aggressive atonal music, especially the Xenakis. Would I recommend it to someone with an adventurous ear? Yes, because it demonstrates the terrific variety within the electronic genre with delightful examples and stands up to many, many listenings."