Peter Ablinger / Erik Drescher
Augmented Studies
GERMANY WORLD EDITION 0023 CD (2013)
All four realisations of these Augmented Studies presented here are performed by flautist Eric Drescher. I notice in passing that Drescher has another release on World Edition, Sais, with pianist Sebastian Berweck and percussionist Martin Lorenz as part of Trio Nexus, this time realising works by Klaus Lang. In addition to his collaborations with Paulo Nenflidio and Ensemble Jungemusik, available to view on YouTube, he also cites on his own website an exhaustive and impressive list of composers whose works he has performed, including Alvin Lucier, Maryanne Amacher, Axel Dörner, Andrea Neumann, and Jennifer Walshe.
Peter Ablinger is a composer, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, whose music “…inquires about the nature of sound, time and space, usually considered the main components of music”, according to his website.
The first piece, Hypotheses On The Moonlight immediately reminds me of Laurie Spiegel’s Harmonices Mundi, although the version of that I have on Table of the Elements is realised on synthesiser, or perhaps something by Paul Panhuysen, but with no strings. But the more I listen, the more bizarre the music becomes. The music raises itself to the point of frenzy by the end. SS. Giovanni E Paolo utilises a field recording (or phonography, as the sleevenotes state) of cleaners in Venice’s church Saint Giovanni e Paolo made in 2007. Flutes, or I should say, sounds derived from flutes, are merged with the drone of the cleaner’s machines to great effect, whereupon, as the machines are turned off so that the operatives can speak to each other, the flutes are stopped in unison allowing us to hear the conversation. This ends the piece and is a beautiful ending; way better than a fade or full stop.
The third piece here, Untitled / 3 Flutes offers an exploration of microtonal information played in three tempos. For those with an interest in this kind of approach, of the three flutes used, one is standard; i.e. 12 semitones in the octave, and the other two modified with extensions to the instruments to allow one with 13 equidistant intervals in the octave and the third with 15 intervals. This piece utilizes short pauses within its structure. The notes are played seemingly at random; occasionally, two or more notes are sounded simultaneously with very close microtonal intervals between them to pleasing effect.
The final piece, Moiré study for Chiyoko Szlavnics is best explained via the sleevenotes: “…for 22 glissando flutes divided in two groups. Both groups perform the same sustained diatonic cluster, but at two different speeds of a very slow, ascending glissando, over 21 minutes.” Again I am reminded of Laurie Spiegel’s Harmonices Mundi. Dense, pleasantly discordant with oscillations, a kind of less abrasive reed organ feel, at 11 minutes it has become a sparkling, shoe-gazey drone. Two minutes later it’s pulsing with beat frequencies. By 17 minutes this effect is very pronounced, and ramps up the anxiety in this listener appropriately.
The sleevenotes are written by Ablinger himself, and take the form of an essay detailing his thoughts on various aspects of the creative process. Here and there he inserts quotes by other artists, although whether his musings are specific to Augmented Studies or simply an example of his general thoughts committed to paper is not clear. His description of snow falling is enlightening, as is his comparison of how we perceive visual information and sound, using the abstractionist painter Barnett Newman as a jumping off point. When he includes the following quote from historian Mircea Eliade; “…Take a man, shave him and drag him on the stone until his body dies…” from Mircea’s book The Forge And The Crucible, I must say I’m perplexed, however.