March 1, 2017

  • Electro-Acoustic Music For Trumpet

     Flamethrower
    Stephen Ruppenthal, trumpets, flugelhorn, voice, crotales.
    Bruno Liberda, audio processing;
    Elainie Lillios, interactive electroacoustics
    Allen Strange, digital media; Brian Belet, audio processing;
    Ravello Records 7954
    Total Time:  53:45
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    A variety of works for trumpet and electronics are featured on Stephen Ruppenthal’s new solo album from Ravello.  Ruppenthal is a noted elctro-acoustical specialist with a variety of articles and books on the subject.  He plays with the Redwood Symphony and is also a founding member of the Electric Weasel Ensemble as well as the group SoundProof.  He studied composition with Allen Strange who is the composer of two of the five works on this rather unique release.

    Listeners unfamiliar with this type of music will be tossed in fairly quickly with Strange’s opening work Velocity Studies V: Ngate (2007).  The piece features pre-recorded tracks with six different lines that play in counterpoint to the live soloist.  The opening features some rapid tonguing work that shifts into an almost noir-ish, ambient middle section.  There are some delay ideas that create a rather fascinating texture with a breathy sound that surrounds the tonal ideas.  A little South-of-the-Border flair also appears briefly.  Strange’s other work, Misty Magic Land (2004), is an example of the integration of solo fixed media and electronically-processed media that is somewhat controllable by the performers.  The latter audio is played back against the real-time acoustic ideas.   It creates a rather mysterious atmosphere against a dark noir-ish introspective feel with long-held notes that add color and intensity as the other electronic ideas swirl about.

    Composer Bruno Liberda joins Ruppenthal on a Kyma digital audio processor for his A Sphere of Air is Bound (2010).  The piece is an experimental exploration of the variety of sounds one cane make on the instrument exploring pitch, dynamics, and articulation as noted in the program information provided by the composer.  The backdrop has an almost bee-like intensity of quietly buzzing and hovering ideas that provide additional backdrops to the different semi-improvisational quality of the soloist.  There are a variety of sounds that float through this rather fascinating work including manipulated text.

    In November Twilight (2011), composer Elainie Lillios used a haiku by Wally Swist as the departure point for this mix of electroacoustics and trumpet with crotales and voice.  The trumpet line moves above a quiet metallic sound as the piece opens.  After a central vocal manipulation section, there is a rather declamatory fanfare-like moment.  The vocal idea returns interrupted by trumpet interjections.  Here the essential sound quality and rhythmic manipulation is imitated between the two in rather intriguing ways.

    The final work on this intriguing program is Brian Belet’s three-movement System of Shadows.  The trumpet ideas are all notated according to the composer.  The soloist can then also improvise and respond to the processing that occurs as the performance unfolds.  Essentially, it would allow for no two performances to ever be similar as the collaboration unfolds between the Kyma processing performer and the soloist.  The opening movement recalls the rapid note passage work exploding into the soundspace which is then picked up and looped back to create additional texture.  This is the interactive idea that occurs as Ruppenthal’s performance is then sampled and manipulated around him creating ever fascinating and shifting electronic textures.  The central movement has a more meditative quality exploring the dreamscape implied in its title, “Andromeda’s Dream.”  The last movement returns to the ideas of repeated notes and interactive electronic manipulation of these ideas.

    Needless to say, this is a very bold release of contemporary music.  Electronic music has found Hollywood a rather welcome niche where it can be integrated into scoring or serve as a cheaper alternative.  In concert music, it still tends to be a rather rarer experience where audiences can perhaps experience more of the unique ways the ideas float out of pre-recorded audio, and can be mixed and reintegrated into the live performance.  It does make those concerts rather fascinating.  On recording, it perhaps does not gain quite the sense of live performance, but this release does manage to provide some great engineering and mixing that lets this shine through a bit.  These would fall closer to avant-garde listening experiences, but the music is certainly quite accessible.