Re: New Thread: Classical Music Influences on Us

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@zvonar.com>]

At 3:40 PM -0700 9/24/01, Rick Walker (loop.pool) wrote:

>Also, it is more abstract (please pardon my loose definition, Tom ;-)
>but have you guys/gals checked out 'Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima'
>by Krzysztof Penderecki?

This has been a big influence on me. I was introduced to the piece in 
a class in the analysis of 20th century music at UCSC back in '77, 
and I've used such dense layerings in my own music ever since. I 
finally made my own Polish string orchestra piece in collaboration 
with bassist Robert Black. In that case all the sounds were from 
Robert's double bass playing: in some case multiple overdubs, in some 
cases layered sounds using TC2290 delays with long delay settings and 
feedback, in some cases layers of sampled arco bass on a MIDI sampler 
(using lots of slow pitch bends). The resulting 8-track backing tape 
was diffused though 12 surround speakers while Robert played solo in 
a concerto relationship.

Penderecki's use of sound masses (or pitch bands, or noise bands - 
whatever you like to call them) is related in some ways to similar 
practice by Ligeti, Xenakis, and others, but Penderecki always does 
sound like himself. I once heard him conduct a piece commissioned by 
a factory. The sound of the orchestra quite resembled a huge assembly 
line.
-- 

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