Horacio Vaggione

Today’s the 70th birthday of the composer Horacio Vaggione (b. Cordoba, Argentinia 21st  Jan 1943). Vaggione is a composer of  electro-acoustic music who uses the very latest technology to explore the many shapes and forms of sound itself. Vaggione studied composition at the National University in Córdoba and the University of Illinois USA and has been Professor of Music, University of Paris since 1994. Using compositional techniques such as granular synthesis, microsounds and micromontage, Vaggione creates sound-sculpture of intricate beauty and startling originality.

Like Rock music, electro-acoustic music’s embryonic beginnings can be traced to the 1950’s. In Paris, pioneer Musique Concrete composer Pierre Henry (b.1927) experimented with natural sounds such as a door creaking, then editing the recording through a variety of means, including tape-splicing, loops, backwards and filtering. Pierre Henry’s Voile D'Orphee  (Veil of Orpheus) of 1953 remains a work of staggeringly early originality and inventive process given the equipment available at the time. Henry's approach to electronic music-making seems to be have been advanced in Vaggione’s own unique sound sculpture. Both composers have for many years been resident in Paris.

I’ve had an interest in electronic music ever since acquiring Deutsche Grammophon vinyl recordings of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966) and Hymnen (1967-68) in the early 1970’s. Stockhausen (1928 - 2007) was one of the most influential figure’s in the development of electronic music and was at times notoriously uncompromising in his artistic agenda to the point of gross insensitivity on occasions. His Gesang Der Junglinge (1955-6) uses both electronically-generated sounds along with recordings of a boy singing text from the Biblical Book of Daniel chapter 3 where Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace. Miraculously they are unharmed and begin to sing praises to God. Such thinly-veiled subject-matter suggests Stockhausen,  throughout his creative career was willing to use his music as a means to open the door for his audience to approach unpleasant aspects of the psyche. Stockhausen's Kontakte (1960) remains a landmark in electronic music. His large-scale work Hymnen (1966-67) lasts some 112 minutes and includes samples of National Anthems to illustrate world-scale historical events and their consequences. It’s a work which though dated, can be hard-hitting and revelatory; its also music which is very much of its time, being a psychedelic and apocalyptic vision.

Far more approachable is Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966). Composed during a visit to Japan and using sounds recorded from temple rituals and ceremonies, the soft-focus tonality of this short work (17 mins.) reveals it as delicate and gentle work. Stockhausen interested the songwriter John Lennon (1940-1980) enough to ensure that the German composer appears on the background of the Pantheon of credited influences and admired people of the Beatles album-cover Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band (1967). Much to the rest of the band’s alleged protestations, Lennon subsequently went ahead and insisted that his own electronic montage Revolution no. 9 was included on the subsequent White album (1968).

It was also during the late 60’s that the Moog synthesizer was invented. It’s previously unheard-of, seemingly magical abilities were showcased in the phenomenally popular album Switched-on Bach (1969) in which the music of J.S. Bach and it's contrapuntal nature can be heard with each voice/line sharply delineated. Carlos’s music received even greater exposure when featured in the controversial Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange (1971).

During the 1970's Horacio Vaggione visited all the major studio's with electro-acoustic composing facilities  in Europe. In many ways the 1970’s decade was the Golden era of electronic music and quite distinct from avant-garde acoustic-electronic music of the era, numerous rock and pop musicians developed electronically-generated music. The seminal albums by Kraftwerk, thematically shaped by the experience of motion via cars, trains and rockets (Autobahn (1974) Trans-Europe Express (1977) Man Machine (1978) and Computer World (1981) along with the less rhythmically-orientated and stronger in melodic content electronic music of Parisian Jean Michel Jarre (b.1948) Oxygene (1976) Equinox (1978) and Magnetic Fields (1981) demonstrated the new protean abilities of the electronic medium through advances in technology in the hands of the creative musician. 

Vaggione’s La Maquina de Cantar (The Singing Machine 1978) in step with the latest trends in music of the decade, uses loops of sound, not unlike Terry Riley’s ground-breaking A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969) or even Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (1973). However, the heavily phased hypnotic, repetitious pure electronics such as by the German band Tangerine Dream in Phaedra (1973) and Rubycon (1976) which use large-time scale canvases became unfashionable for its excesses in the 80's. Such music-making soon tires the listener. In comparison Steve Reich’s Music for 18 musicians (1976) which lasts an hour, holds the listener in thrall,  its short phrases are skilfully juggled among members of an ensemble, Nor can one overlook the influence of early, so-called ambient music such as Brian Eno's Music for Airports (1978) while the aquatic soundscape of Jean Michel Jarre’s Waiting for Cousteau (1990) now seems to have become a classic of large-scale ambient minimalism. 

Vaggione’s latest release Points Critiques (2012) includes compositions dating from the 1990’s and the first decade of the 21st century including Nodal from 1997. There's a free download of Vaggione's 24 variations (2011) available at itunes. (Youtube clips of both titles below).

I remember a stunning performance of  well-amplified electro-acoustic music at Norwich cathedral in the 1970’s. Most listeners were amazed at how the combination of the acoustics in historical buildings with the extraordinary sound palette available to the modern composer using electronic equipment and transformed recordings sounded in such a setting. I also remember here at Norwich, the University of East Anglia once had, not only a school of music with studio recording facilities, but also visiting electronic music composers and a series of concerts devoted to the performance of electro-acoustic music. All now extinct, sacrificed upon the altar of pecuniary expediency.

Whether the appreciation of such sound-structures as Vaggione’s is an acquired taste from training the ear or simply the product of being able to listen without prejudice or preconceptions remains debatable. I quite like this statement made on Youtube about Vaggione’s music

The more art is abstract, the more it challenges the consumer. Consumers who are empty inside cry for forms and shapes. They have to, otherwise they are lost. Nothing is more telling about a person than the way he/she reacts to abstract art.

What is certain is that a rich variety of tonal texture and engaging demonstrations to the listener of how sound can be transformed in exquisite detail can be heard on Vaggione’s Points Critiques (2012). Each electro-acoustic composition is exemplary of granular synthesis and a fantastic listening experience. 

Happy birthday to Horacio Vaggione, grandmaster composer of electro-acoustic music.

Crome Yellow

Aldous Huxley's first novel Crome Yellow (1921) is a dazzling display of wit which satirizes the follies and foibles of post world-war society. It established Huxley's literary name and anticipates in its themes, setting and didactic dialogue, subsequent literary works written in the 1920's decade by the English novelist and essayist.

The template of Huxley's early novels resembles those of the Victorian novelist Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) whose Nightmare Abbey (1818) and Crotchet Castle (1837) involve a gathering of a variety of characters in the setting of an ancestral manor. Once arrived, the various guests are used as voice-pieces to represent differing view-points and outlooks on life. By setting the main action within the walls of a castle or ancestral Hall, the 'English country house' approach to novel-writing, the novelist gives rein for characters to inter-act with each other and their view-point is satirized, often mercilessly, sometimes with hilarious effect, as in Peacock's dialogue novels. 

In Crome Yellow, Dennis, a would-be-poet searching for the meaning of life, visits the ancestral manor of Crome as a guest of Henry Wimbush and his wife. Once there he encounters several other guests, each representing a specific point of view, these include his hostess Priscilla who is fascinated with 'spiritual vibrations' and casts horoscopes of racing horses and football teams, the hedonistic painter and bon-viveur Gombrich who has aesthetically developed beyond abstract painting, and the journalistic-cum-mystic Mr. Barbecue-Smith who is capable of writing hundreds of meaningful aphorisms on life before breakfasting.

Throughout the novel topics such as the place of women in the modern world, sex and morality, art and the role of the individual in society are humorously touched upon, while event's witness the protagonist's increasing indecisiveness in love. In some ways early novels such as Crome Yellow and Antic Hay read not unlike an highly intellectualized version of a P.G.Wodehouse novel; over time however, the formula of P.G. Wodehouse's country house novels portray a fossilized English world, far removed from the realities and changes in the world.

The serious and deteriorating situation of the world in politics and economics during the 1930's obliged Huxley to take a less light-hearted approach to novel-writing to debate on humanity and its future, in particular humanity's relationship to science. Anticipating the theme of Huxley's later novel Brave New World (1931) its the cynical and slightly sinister Mr. Scogan in Crome Yellow who speaks of -

an "impersonal generation" of the future that will "take the place of Nature's hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations.

Huxley's Brave New World retains its power to shock and challenge the reader and its mood of prophetic doom remains thought-provoking.

In his 1994 introduction to Crome Yellow, the English novelist Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) and co-founder with fellow novelist Angus Wilson (1913-1991) of the prestigious MA Creative writing course at UEA, Norwich,  stated -

For the fact is that, though there is personal satire involved, Crome Yellow, like any good book, easily transcends all its first stimuli. The characters become unmistakeably Huxleyan, just as their world of obsessive ideas becomes the means for the author to analyse a time when chatter does not disguise despair, people all live alone in their own individual worlds of story, and all lives, as Denis comes to see, are parallel straight lines...................................The comic novel of ideas is one of the treasures of British fiction, not always sufficiently appreciated. Crome Yellow is one of the modern classics, which is why, well after its time, it can go on being read with complete delight and pleasure. [1]

Although I've now read and re-read a fair percentage of Huxley's novels over the decades (see book-shelf bottom of page) Crome Yellow was the first novel I've ever read on a Kindle. It's a gadget which would have appealed to Huxley who suffered with poor eye-sight throughout his life, giving it as the main reason for migrating to California in 1937. I don't doubt that Huxley would have viewed a the Kindle reader as an example of how science and technology has transformed the lives of millions in the twentieth century. Huxley himself suffered from poor eyesight, but had he lived to witness its invention, he would with little doubt enthused over the Kindle reader's ability to enlarge its reading font.  

A few tenuous connections may be indulged and noted between Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) and Sir Thomas Browne. Both literary figures share a reputation of being leading intellectuals of their day who were capable of discoursing upon metaphysical questions in a bold and original manner. Both authors also had a penchant towards mysticism and are sometimes termed as mystics themselves. It's quite likely that Huxley read Browne, as he was in vogue during the 1920's due to attention received from Virginia Woolf and members of the Bloomsbury group. It's even possible that in terms of literary style, Browne may have influenced Huxley in his use of parallelisms, that is, stating the same thing twice within a single sentence in a variant manner, it's a literary technique found in the writings of both authors.

Aldous Huxley, like Browne before him, also took an interest in drugs. His essay on his empirical psycho-nautical experiments with mescaline, The Doors of Perception (1954) has now acquired a near legendary cult-status. All that Huxley attempted to articulate upon the transcendent may however be succinctly summarized in the lyrics of the song Tomorrow never knows from the Beatles album Revolver (1966)  in the line - It is not dying. 

It's interesting to note in passing that it was due to Browne's early interest in what is now known  as the medical fields of psychology and psychiatry, that the word 'Hallucination' was introduced into the English language. More recently, the eminent neurologist Oliver Sacks (b. 1933) discusses the psychological implications of medical case-histories such as phantom limbs, the bereaved sensing the presence of a deceased partner, synaesthesia and his own psycho-nautical experiments in his new book Hallucinations (2012).[2]

Of far greater interest, there seems to be some kind of play on words in  the title of Huxley's first novel. The colour chrome yellow, as it is correctly spelt, was first discovered by Louis Nicolas Vauquelin in the mineral crocoite (lead chromate) in 1797. Chrome Yellow became available as a pigment for oil-painters around 1816 after the cessation of the Napoleonic wars. Aldous Huxley has in all probability, rather slyly one suspects, conflated the fictitious setting of his first novel and the surname of an English painter with the technical name of a colour pigment.

The founding father of the Norwich School of Painters, John Crome  (1768 - 1821) was inspired by the natural beauty of the Norfolk landscape and painted several master-works, some of which are set in urban riverscapes. In his late work Late Afternoon on Norwich river circa 1819, John Crome draws the viewer's eye to the centre of his painting through colour. At the  painting's centre  a young woman seated at a boat's stern can be seen wearing a fashionable early Georgian dress. The colour of her dress, a bright chrome yellow, as painted by Crome, is reflected in water.

Finally, just as the composer Sergei Prokofiev's death was overshadowed by the dying on the  same day as Joseph Stalin, so too Aldous Huxley's death was overshadowed for on the 22nd of November, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Notes
[1] 1994 Introduction by Malcolm Bradbury to Crome Yellow pub. Vintage Classics 2004
[2]  Hallucinations - Oliver Sacks - pub. Picador Nov. 8th 2012

Japan: Kingdom of Characters

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia (UEA) for an exhibition organized by the Japanese Foundation entitled Japan : Kingdom of Characters. On an all-too-rare day of settled summer weather it was well worth the short cycle-ride from home to view.

The informative guidebook to the Kingdom of Characters exhibition explains that Japanese people have established strong ties with manga and anime characters; in effect, such characters have forged a powerful bond with the Japanese psyche, sometimes as a replacement for family and friends. In essence, many of the rich and imaginative characters of Japanese manga and anime have developed as compensation and comfort against the stresses and alienation of life in megapolis cities. And for these reasons it's not always easy for Westerners to appreciate manga and anime's enormous popularity in Japan. A sizeable percentage of Japanese society was profoundly psychologically dislocated as a result of the rapid  growth, industrialization and urbanization which Japanese population underwent in the twentieth century. In some ways manga and anime characters have also provided comfort for the solitary and lonely as well as the survivors of the many disasters Japan has experienced throughout its history. From the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the cataclysmic natural disasters of the Kobe earthquake of 1995 to the simultaneous disasters of earthquake, Tsunami, nuclear power-plant meltdown and subsequent radio-active fears of 2011, Japan has always been vulnerable, not only to ecological disasters but also to man-made catastrophes.

From the early 1950’s manga characters such as Tetuswan Atom (Astro Boy), Japanese anime has debated on humanity’s relationship to science, on the differences between robots and humans, the future of humanity in sci-fi worlds, often of a post-apocalyptic nature and the moral issues of living in a technologically sophisticated, yet alienating megapolis. Alongside an advanced technological and scientific perspective, the remnants of superstition and a fascination with the spirit world in the popular psyche often feature in Japanese anime. Typically, the ghost in the machine in Japanese anime speaks with the voice of a long-lost ancestral spirit.

There’s a considerable amount of mass-produced merchandise associated with Japanese anime; the Kingdom of Characters exhibition even re-creates a teenage girl’s bedroom crowded with the paraphernalia of her favourite anime characters, some of whom have achieved global popularity. The Tamagotchi ‘egg-watch’ digital electronic pet has now sold in excess of 76 million since 1996, while the characters of Pokemon and Hello Kitty (photo above) are instantly recognized and loved by many throughout the world.

Far removed from the cute and kitsch world of Hello Kitty with subject-matter unsuitable for any public exhibition, Toshio Maeda's notorious Urotsukidōji: Chōjin Densetsu, lit. Wandering Kid: The Legend of the Super God (1986-90) is a seminal anime work which features strong hentai elements of graphic sex.

Puzzlingly to western sensibilities Maeda's controversial Urotsukidōji mixes plots and genres seemingly unrelated to each other - horror, comedy, disaster, the supernatural and teen-age romance are all juxtaposed in random sequence. This effect is heightened further by the severe editing which Maedea’s flawed masterpiece has suffered at the hands of the British Board of Censors. Besides indulging in extreme eroticism and violence Urotsukidōji depicts an alternate world in which  the battle of good and evil is fought on a cosmic scale between mankind, beasts and demons. Urotsukidōji also includes an example of so-called tentacle erotica. The origins of tentacle erotica can be traced to an illustration by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai's (1760-1849) The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife an influential example of Shunga (Japanese erotic art). The subject of tentacle eroticism has been explored by a number of artists, but perhaps none with such notoriety as Toshio Maedea’s interpretation. Maedea returned to tentacle eroticism in his equally infamous horror/sex comedy series La Blue Girl (1992-94).

Japanese anime has also been used a vehicle to discuss romance, sexuality and spirituality. In Takahashi Rumiki’s romantic-comedy Urusei Yatsura (1978-87) the bikini-clad Lum possesses the fatal combination of a bad temper in conjunction with magical powers as elements of her adolescent love-life. The relationship between sexuality and magic is never far from the surface in Rumiki’s dark fantasy Mermaid Forest (1991) which develops an ancient Japanese legend, that mermaid's flesh grants immortality if eaten. However, there's also the risk that eating it may also lead to death or transformation into a lost soul or damned creature.

Other notable landmarks in the history Japanese anime include Masamune Shirow’s  Ghost in the Shell (1995) in which a cyborg heroine with human consciousness questions her own identity - Perfect Blue (1997) a Hitchcock-like psycho-thriller and Hiroyuki Kitakabo’s Blood: The Last Vampire (2000) which sets the vampire myth on an American occupation air-base. Each of the aforementioned has in one way or another advanced the art of Japanese anima in either genre and story-telling and/or computer-generated graphic design.

Mary's Steps

Last weekend, a rare evening's jaunt out to the theatre, a short walk to the  UEA Drama studio, located on the campus of the University  of East Anglia. The final year drama students  had staged a medieval mystery play entitled ‘Mary’s Steps’ for four nights only; the production included over 20 scenes including the Creation and Fall, the Passion of Christ and the Assumption of Mary.  Ingeniously, the play conceived by  Anthony Gash and assisted in direction by Ant Cule and Tom Francis, included several ‘Frame’ scenes in which the action focused upon a meeting between two medieval Christian mystics of the region, Margery Kempe and  Julian of Norwich. The portrayal of their quite different temperaments and approach to spiritual matters fittingly framed  the medieval mystery play.

Acted in the the round, the set was admirably configured upon the  Jungian Quaternary principle, with four entrances and exits, heaven and hell opposite each other from which  a procession of  monks, bishops, angels, Mary and Joseph, Adam and Eve, Satan and his pantomime cohorts, the Parliament of Heaven,  Christ and Pilate and personifications of the seven deadly sins among many others, occupied the central round with some fine acting.  One sensed  throughout the staging of 20 scenes that the production included a strong collaborative element amongst the cast.  The delivery of quite a difficult middle English text throughout was excellent and clear. It can’t have been easy remembering such lines as -

The twelfte is meknes that is fayre and softe. In mannnys sowle withinne and withowte: Lord, mun herte is not heyyed on lofte Nyn myn eyn be not lokynge abowte.

But in fact as the  programme notes to the production of   ‘Mary’s Step’s’ inform, the re-enactment  of what is known as the cycle of ‘N-town’ Medieval mystery plays involved research  upon quite a number of topics for its realization. These included- How to read a Church, 15^th century Ecclesiastical History, Liturgy, Music, Iconography, clothing and costume, Law and Government and Domestic arrangements. Such research contributed greatly to the credibility of the production. The end result of such labours however, involving a whole term’s rehearsal was a thoroughly stimulating evening’s entertainment, the psychological intensity of the enactment of the Passion of Christ central  to the whole drama. The two girls sitting beside me were suitably shocked and squeamish at the graphic physicality of  blood  and violence as hammer and nails were used  in the crucifixion scene. But there was also puppetry, acrobatics and humour interspersed throughout the performance.

There were also several moving passages of music, sung well if self-consciously; at times one wished for stronger accompaniment of either whistle or harp  to add colour and support, but still  a fine selection of polyphonic music, one can’t go  too wrong with  the music of von Bingen and Desprez.

But in essence the final year  UEA drama students achieved  their goal,  none other than the restoration of an important piece of East Anglian cultural history no less, a  pageant  of theological tableaux not without humour, but equally informative upon the didactic entertainment  of the Medieval age, which held their audience  enthralled as much now as during the Middle Ages. It may be quite some time before the resources and inclination are available for another scholarly  re-enactment of a medieval mystery play  in Norwich.

 In addition to the  enactment of a  medieval passion play, ‘Mary’s Steps’  included  a portrayal of Julian of Norwich (c. 1342 – 1416).  The fame of Julian of Norwich continues to grow world-wide, ever since T.S.Eliot quoted her in his poem 'Little Gidding' the fourth of his  four quartets.  It has now become an introductory commonplace to trot out the fact that she is the first woman to be identified as such, to write in the English language. Julian's ‘Revelations of Divine Love’  a recording of her ‘showing’  of the Passion of Christ, and reflection upon the meaning of her revelations, are a spiritual classic and one of the most up-beat  statements about  God’s loving-kindness. There are at least three increasing well-known texts by Julian which are frequently quoted. The exacting research of the  production  of ‘Mary’s Steps’  pinpointed Julian’s description of the human condition neatly in her parable of a lord and his servant (chapter 51 Long text). Julian's hazel-nut vision can never be quoted too often -

At the same time, our Lord showed me a spiritual vision of his familiar love. I saw that for us he is everything that we find good and comforting......In this vision he also showed a little thing, the size of a hazel-nut in the palm of my hand, and it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought, 'What can this be?' And the answer came to me, 'It is all that is made.' I wondered how it could last, for it was so small I thought it might suddenly disappear. And the answer in my mind was,'It lasts and will last forever because God loves it; and in the same way everything exists through the love of God'.

The contrast between Margery Kempe’s at times gushy spirituality  with Julian’s quiet, inner mystical visions was neatly marked in ‘Mary’s Steps’; it was an inspired idea to place  Margery Kempe amongst the audience, as heart-on-her sleeve, she  melodramatically  responded to  the enactment of the Passion of Christ. ‘Mary’s Steps’ concluded with Julian’s  meditation upon her famous words  -'All shall be well'; here's a  fuller  quote  from chapter 27 -

And because of the tender love which our good Lord feels for all who shall be saved, he  supports us willingly and sweetly, meaning this: 'It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well,  and all manner of things shall be well. These words were said very tenderly, with no suggestion that I or anyone who will be saved was being blamed. It would therefore be very strange to blame or wonder at God because of my sin, since he does not blame me for sinning.

The whole performance  of 'Mary's Steps' lasted  almost 3 hours, so a big well-done to all involved in such a  marathon production which never remotely  flagged. The cheers of relief back-stage were also a joy to hear!

                                                               Step this way!

It was amusing to see that in order to leave the studio and re-enter the world  the audience had to walk through the dog’s mouth entrance to Hell!

Postscript:

To be honest I often have mixed feelings about my old alma mater, as one of the last new Universities to be built UEA is a mere 50 years old, against a backdrop of a City over one thousand years old . Because the University's  fragile identity felt the need to  ‘borrow’ the city’s motto for its own (Do different) without adopting the City’s place-name I feel, as a half-century resident Norvicensian, a need to  speak out here.  Recent events  have not always seen the UEA  make a  positive contribution towards the reputation of the City.  Town and gown’s relationship remains very poor  because UEA’s recent ‘doing different’ has included a  rapid succession of short-stay vice-chancellors, the reputation of the School of climatic research exposed under world-media scrutiny and now a lecturer in Law convicted and imprisoned; UEA's lack of direction will hopefully be stabilized  in developing a medical teaching relationship  with the nearby University Hospital. Must do better!

It’s very important to remember however  that this catalogue  of failures  is  solely the fault of the academic institute itself and not the fault of  its students whatsoever.

In the same week as the debate and vote upon whether student tuition fees should be hiked up, effectively pulling the draw-bridge up for access to higher education for many, here was a  university theatrical production which in its own modest way restored an important piece of cultural history to the region. It’s not exactly rocket-science to understand the importance of such artistic projects to society as a whole.  But again this is more to do with the talent of students than the  knee-jerking  compliance of academic institutions to Government directives. Sometimes those controlling the purse-strings  of finance know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Link to   photo's of costume rehearsal
 Here's a link to the excellent website dedicated to Julian, maintained by Julia Bolton Holloway Julian of Norwich website

The best paperback edition  of Julian available -

 Revelations of Divine Love ed. Elizabeth Spearing. Penguin 1998