English – Page 2 – Cecilia Arditto Delsoglio

Spiegeltjes (little mirrors) (2016)

5 pieces for clarinet, tape and objects
The tape can be replaced by a second clarinet OR by any other melodic instrument: transpositions can be applied.
The different pieces of this project can be played as a cycle or individually.

This cycle of pieces (five in total) is inspired by the renaissance Flemish composers and their use of mirror techniques. Most of them are written for a solo instrument in dialogue with a tape/vinyl pre-recorded by the same instrument. Duo versions replacing the recording for a second player, are very welcome.

The music score is not published yet. Please send me an email if you are interested in this work.

# 1. Spiegeltjes / little mirrors: is symmetrically split into two equal parts with a vertical line, organizing the musical material with retrogrades and inversion techniques. On a smaller scale, the clarinet plays in counterpoint with itself conforming little mirrors which are expressed in groups of notes with stems up and down.

# 2. Snel / fast: the recorded clarinet is partially duplicated by the live clarinet creating a new melody (a mirror with holes). Mirrors are not only present in the music but they also reflect the acoustical space. This intriguing “quasi unison” shapes the harmony of the piece. It is advisable to explore the acoustics of the hall finding the most appropriate location for both performers, which will be different in every venue.

#3. Zand / sand: the pre-recorded clarinet plays in counterpoint with the live one in canon. The multiphonic chords are shaped by this written delay creating interesting harmonies.

#4. Tekening / drawing: (two players), the flutists and a drawer who draws in the mirror in synch with the clarinet.

#5. Terug / backward: an evergoing melody is played back and forth, written in classical retrograde style.

The inclusion of real mirrors on stage creates not only visual duplications but a blind spot behind. The two performers have a different setup for each piece of the program playing with the mirror but also taking different locations on the space. Simple movements create very different scenarios and emphasize the acoustics of the hall in a “hide and seek” but “always listening” game.

Spiegeltjes stage design – practical and flexible

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The dearest dream (2018)

Program notes

anti concerto for percussion and ensemble of 10 instruments
2nd prize Wilde Lieder Marx Competition by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

The dearest dream is an anti-concerto for simple means based on concepts by Karl Marx.
The music has 4 sections displaying different relationships between the soloist and the ensemble.
I. Dialectic of the strings, a string-telephone quartet is in dialogue with the ensemble strings.
2. The song of the land makes music with grains.
3. The man (repetition and alienation) where the percussionist sweeps the concert hall floor with a broom.
4. The machine is characterized by 4 electric fans with rotating heads.

The sound architecture of The dearest dream is based mainly on one note: it uses the spectrum of the note F-1, starting with A 440 (20th overtone) which progressively opens to the complete overtone series.
The sound changes during the piece from sine wave at the beginning to noise at the end, making changes in color but always respecting the overtone hierarchy. The rhythms used in the piece are mainly repeated notes, just slight fluctuations of the fixed sounds: in other words, they represent variations over the same. The whole ensemble play basically only one note and its overtones represents the tradition that perpetuates itself (status quo), leading to movement but without real changes. The dialogue with the outside objects breaks the fixed order bringing an unorthodox musical dialogue. The percussion plays diverse objects that impregnate the rest of the music. He is a soloist, or better said, an anti-soloist. Some members of the ensemble also play some objects apart from their instruments, to show some sympathy to the percussionist.

• Audio
• Video
• Press

Download score PDF

Send download link to:

Related post/s in my blog
“Barrer en quintillos” (Spanish)

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Las trampas del tiempo / traps of time (2011)

Program notes

for early music ensemble and voices
based on texts by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
commissioned by Borealis Festival, Norway

The true picture of the past whizzes by. Only as a picture, which flashes its final farewell in the moment of its recognizability, is the past to be held fast.

Walter Benjamin “On the concept of history”

I like to think about the mechanism of time as a switch with a bad contact that turns randomly the light on and off. We are in an intermittent room where the chairs, the stage, the instruments appear and disappear in flashes of sense; the full picture of the continuous space is only in our minds; the real space is in fact fragmented, full of emptiness. The present is even more ungraspable than the past.

Time is a bunch of threads all tied up together with our precarious mind mechanisms, wrapping the emptiness around with more hope than certainties. Most of the time, time is about jumps or just a continuous waiting we attempt to fill with notes. But when more notes, more emptiness.

As in a science fiction movie, the music I am imagining is related to the idea of teleportation where remote music from the XVII century travels through time to nowadays, but for some inner mechanism of the travel process, the essence has been altered.

The new space of reproduction is also different from that original one, so the old music lands in a fragmented present. In this distorted present, full of inhabited spaces, a record player inside the harpsichord talks like a guitar; some instruments are activated from the distance and old cassette tapes are reflecting the other music like acoustical mirrors, express not only the shade of early voices but also the alteration of time itself.

The new landing experience from the XVII music failed and music is hence spread on a present that is also fragmented, full of holes. But the travel was not about the historical reproduction of a past forever gone. It was mainly about showing the backstage of our present, which is so discontinuous, distorted and fragmented as the past we recall. Maybe this music is not about a specific time location, even not about a dialogue, but about the mysterious nature of time itself.

Related post/s in my blog:
“Las trampas del tiempo” (English)

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I love you (2016)

Program notes

for flute, guitar, tape, slides and objects
for Luis Orias Diz and Alu Montorfano

I found a collection of slides in a flea market in Holland. The slides reflect a house being remodeled. No holidays, no people, no landscapes. Electric installations, wallpaper being ripped, traps and a gas meter.
In the ’60s, people were really careful about taking pictures, different from the click and through away of the digital pictures.
The story behind is unknown. Just I’ve got images of an empty house in remodeling. The slides show a garden, a window, gas and electricity meters, a ladder, the bedroom.
In these scenarios, a man and a woman play music. They make music in counterpoint with the electricity sounds, they sing together with the gas pipes and play pianissimos in synchronization with the wallpaper that slowly, maybe for decades, is falling down.

• Audio files

Related post/s in my blog
“I love you too” (Español)
“La vida de los otros” (Español)

I love you (2016) Read More »

Gestalt (2014)

Program notes

for piano and percussion
dedicated to duo Cuenco de plata – Juanita Fernández y Malena Levín

Gestalt shows diverse forms of communication between two performers and how each way of relating generates different music structures (Gestalt). In between music, sound, and space design, Gestalt is music in the form of a treatise to be perceived in-between categories.

The piece is based on 10 sections in the form of scenes. Each scene speaks about different ways of relationships between performers, their link with objects, musical instruments and the design of the stage, which is changing over time.

Proximity: Close objects conform a group
Continuation: Moving objects conform a line
Focal point – Point of interest captures attention
Good continuation. Grouping parts into a unique whole
Common region- Events are related when in the same area
Figure and ground
Similarity – Similar features link events
Symmetry – Looking for balance in composition
Common fate
Past experiences

• Video

Download score PDF

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Gestalt (2014) Read More »

Viaje de las frecuencias en el agua / Travel of frequencies on the water (2018)

Program notes

for bass clarinet, piano and double bass
dedicated to Low Frequency Trio
winner of the Low Frequency Trio competition

Viaje de las frecuencias en el agua (Travel of frequencies on the water) was inspired by von Karman vortex street’s theory, which studies repeated patterns in fluids, as swirling spirals in smoke rings or winds surrounding a tropical cyclone.
In my piece, the fluid medium is the water, played in a literal way by using a straw and a siphon; the bass clarinet is also prepared with water inside its bell, which causes fascinating acoustical phenomena. In analogy with von Karman’s theory, which amalgams the vulnerability of fluids with the power of the force that molds them, my music combines the fragility of sound with the solid rhythmical structure of the music.
Viaje de las frecuencias en el agua is dedicated to my father, eternal lover of the utopias of Jules Verne and to trioLF3, my musical submarine.

• Audio
• Video

Download score PDF

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Palabras / Words (2005)

Program notes

for soprano, viola, baritone saxophone and 1/16th tone piano.
comissioned by NFPK, Holland

Palabras uses words in two different ways: words as sounds, and words as meaning.
Written for 1/16 tone piano, saxophone, viola and voice, the microtonal division of the tones remains the fluctuation of the spoken voice.

The piece is divided into five different blocks of spoken language that go from the proper spoken voice (Part IV) to a melodic line (part II) which is sung by the four instruments. Every block or surface has a different quality in relation to different kinds of discourse.
Julian Carrillo,s 1/16 tone piano was a primary inspiration for this piece and its relation to the spoken voice. The microtonal divisions of the piano are in the frequency range of the spoken language.

• Audio
• Video (excerpts)
• Analysis
• Press

Palabras / Words (2005) Read More »

Lijnen (2004)

Program notes

for trombone, viola, contrabass flute and 4 magic lanterns
comissioned by Stichting Kous

In Lijnen sound and image are together sharing a common language in the same level of hierarchy. In collaboration with visual artist Ida Lohman, image and sound work in a one-to-one relationship. Lijnen uses a significantly reduced palette of materials: seven different images and four sounds for three instruments (viola, trombone and contrabass flute). The combination of few elements allows multiple possibilities. Simple and complex. In this piece, both music and image are played in real-time.

• Video

Related post/s in my blog
“Preguntas” (Español)

Lijnen (2004) Read More »

Dos #1 (2011) and Dos #2 (2015)

Program notes

Dos #1 for voice and two pickup players (or tape)
commissioned by Stichting Plan B, Amsterdam
Dos #2 for violin, cello and two pickup players (or tape)
commissioned by DieOrdnungDerDinge, Berlin

Working with recordings brings the possibility to recall different versions of the same piece. Old voices are in counterpoint with the live performance and the music splits into diverse historical lines. As a science fiction movie, the past converges with the present: in an ex-temporary gesture, Schumann is reflected on vinyl, the future for him.
In classical musical instruments, model, year, material, and builder have an enormous impact on the characteristics of their sound. The same happens with domestic appliances: every model, every speaker, every decade, brings its own particular sound.
These domestic appliances are generally built to be used at home and not in a stage. In this music -never better employed the term chamber music- domestic appliances bring the atmosphere of a house to the stage.
Devices are in dialogue with live instruments or the human voice in a “concerto” form. A historical pre-recorded vinyl version of Schumann´s Carnival is manipulated live in a “live electronics” DJ style.
The name Dos (two) refers to the sad bipolar condition attributed to Schumann. Two pickup players, slightly out of synch, build a psychological atmosphere full of distorted mirrors.

Program notes for Dos #2 DieOrdnungDerDinge, Berlin June 2016 (in Spanish)
Colección de piezas compuestas en base al “Carnaval” de Robert Schumann. Música para violin, cello y dos tocadiscos.
Este concierto se basa grabaciones en vinilo de música de Robert Schumann en contrapunto con nueva música compuesta por Cecilia Arditto para instrumentos en vivo.
La grabación histórica congela una versión específica de la música que dialoga en vivo con otro presente musical en una clara metáfora sobre el tiempo: un tiempo congelado en contrapunto con un tiempo nuevo.
Los tocadiscos son considerados también instrumentos musicales. Además de reproducir una grabación específica, cada tocadiscos, tiene un sonido particular en sí mismo, un aura, una historia que imprime una cualidad especial en el sonido reproducido, trayendo no solo las grabaciones del pasado, sino sus características de reproducción.
Las grabaciones originales del Carnaval de Schumann están procesadas en vivo, utilizando los recursos propios de los tocadiscos: alteración del volumen, tono y distintas velocidades (16-33 ½, 45 y 78) y manipulación del vinilo, scratches, ruidos con la púa, etc, en un estilo “low-tech DJ”.
Dos esta basada en el número Chopin del Carnaval op.9 de Schumann, reproducida en dos tocadiscos con grabaciones idénticas en un juego de velocidades cambiantes (16, 33 ½, 45 y 78 rpm) en contrapunto con los instrumentos en vivo. Dos remite a la condición bipolar de Schumann y su diálogo constante con sus “alter egos” presentes en su producción musical.

Link artículo PDF “Modicación de algunos parametros de una grabación en LP al cambiar la velocidad del plato” por Gabriel Abellán (Spanish)

Preparations

1. Overview

2. Buttons

3. Pitch

4. Finger gliss.

5. Speed

6. Speakers

Improvisation with pickups and props

Muziek als vinyls & tapes: Ratatouille TV- Amsterdam

Dos #1:

Download score PDF

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Dos #2:

Download score PDF

Send download link to:

Comic book (2011)

Program notes

for clarinet and slide projector
It can also be played with any other melodic instrument

This project is a collection of small pieces, where the live process image from the projectors is in counterpoint with the clarinet and cassette players. It is a book with different episodes in between formats, austere exercises on image and sound, made with analog means: slides, strings, and live music.

Comic book is inspired by the first animation film pioneers like Norman McLaren and his inspiring work on step motion techniques. McLaren was also a pioneer in image and sound research composing visual music and graphical sound. My Comic Book shows these “step motion techniques” in a live version: the black box is just in front of the audience´s eyes.

Text invitation for the premiere in Amsterdam

15 april 19:00 – 22:00
Kulter. Sanderijnstraat 21. Amsterdam West

In the context of the presentation of the book “Notations” in Ámsterdam I would like to invite you to the performance of my new piece “Comic book” (comic in Spanish is also funny) for clarinet and slide projectors. In this occasion we will introduce three episodes of this book: #1. Geometry counterpoint; #2. Solfege lesson and #3. Dancing staff in honor of the Notation book. Everything home made with tinny recycled papers and slide projectors bought in Dutch markets for maximun 15 euros price (ticket is 5!).

Related works:
• Musique Concrète -project page

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