Track List

Side A In Memoriam Jon Higgins - Alvin Lucier

Side B In Memoriam Stuart Marshall - Alvin Lucier

Credits

(Bass) clarinet, sine wave, recording and mixing by Dries Tack

Recorded at home studio Asbeek, april 2023

Microphones and preamps from Wannes Gonnissen

Mastering by Gabriel Séverin

Cover design by Jan D'Hooghe

Liner Notes by Rebecca Diependaele

Lay-out by Fred Walheer

Label: Sub Rosa

And listen to the ocean again

Rebecca Diependaele

“In my mind, Lucier is the poet of electronic music”. With these words, fellow composer Pauline Oliveros concludes her preface to a publication of interviews with and collected writings by Alvin Lucier (1931-2021). In the same text she aptly characterizes him as one of those composers “interested in the phenomenology of sound and the revelation of its natural characteristics and processes as music-making”. It is precisely this combination of a thorough understanding of physical (sound) phenomena and a creative, musical intention that is key to Lucier’s music.

In Memoriam John Higgins (1984) focusses on the natural phenomenon of beatings: the sensation of a rhythmical pattern, deep inside the listener’s ear, that arises when the wave patterns of two tones reinforce each other. Beatings can be very clearly audible when two bright tones slide past each other. In this composition Lucier juxtaposes a clarinet player with a sine wave. The latter makes a long upward glissando movement that lasts over 20 minutes, whereas the clarinetist plays 16 long notes. The placement of the two sound layers on top of one another causes the beatings to come and go, and to speed up and down as the clarinet plays across the rising wave. The beatings may moreover be perceived as moving though the concert space. As a secondary effect this piece triggers the appearance of difference-tones, low notes with a frequency that equals the difference of the two frequencies that are actually played.

In Memoriam Stuart Marshall (1994) draws on a similar concept. Here the sine tone remains unchanged, while the bass clarinet circles around it in a number of different ways. The atmosphere is palpably different and almost spiritual in nature. In both pieces Lucier approaches the clarinet as a “technological device”, as James Tenney puts it in his preface to the same book as the one by Oliveros. The instrument, just like any other mechanical, electrical, or biological “system” Lucier uses in his compositions, is aimed at making certain sound phenomena perceptible. Lucier’s perfect player “doesn’t add anything”, as the composer himself points out. “He doesn’t crescendo; he doesn’t try to bend notes or make them expressive. He just does it.”

Alvin Lucier's music is at its best as a live experience. The acoustic properties of the performance space are more often than not a crucial parameter in the realization of a compositions concept. Making a recording in that regard is not a straightforward matter and calls for a thoughtful approach. “We have tried to make the performance space audible”, Dries Tack recounts. The music is recorded in such a way that the naturally occurring stereo in the room takes the upper hand, allowing the sound sources themselves to fade into the background. The room's reflections are present as a gentle tingling in the high register. Both recordings are single takes. 

Often Alvin Lucier’s scores look deceptively simple. Many scores are verbal; standard staff notation is used only occasionally. The scores for In Memoriam John Higgins and In Memoriam Stuart Marshall easily fit on two and four pages respectively, including the performance instructions. “I’m trying to write clear linear prose”, Lucier states, “that describes a complete situation (…).”I’m trying to make it very clear and simple and pristine.” He keeps as far away as possible from personal expression and compositional intervention in the natural phenomenon that underlies the composition. As a composer, Lucier, in the footsteps of John Cage, largely withdraws from the musical situation: his first and foremost concern is to share his sense of wonder for the natural world. This does not take away from the fact that his compositions, precisely in their clarity, pristinity, and simplicity, have a poetic character that is no less than amazing. “I guess I’m trying to help people hold shells up to their ears”, the composer once remarked, “and listen to the ocean again.”

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All quotes by Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, and James Tenney were taken from: Alvin Lucier, Reflection: Interviews, Scores, Writings 1965-1994, edited by Gisela Gronemeyer and Reinhard Oehlschlägel, Edition MusikTexte, Cologne, 2005, pp.12, 14, 18, 72, 110, 214.