• Concrete (2006) opera for solo voices, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

Concrete follows from Robert Ashley’s preoccupation in two previous operas with the kind of speech that has not been explored in opera — in Dust, the speech of the homeless; in Celestial Excursions, the speech of people living together in a home for old people. The three operas are not a “trilogy” in any sense, but they all come from this preoccupation with or fascination with special kinds of speech and special kinds of states of mind.

“The characters I’m interested in,” Ashley explains, “are marginal, because everybody is marginal compared to the stereotypes. I am interested in their profoundly good qualities, and I’m not interested at all in evil. The characters in my work are as bizarre and unreal as the characters in William Faulkner. They just happen to be ordinary people who are spiritually divine.” (The Wire, 2003)

Though in Concrete it is not made explicit in any way, the libretto might be considered to be the “musings” of an old man alone. He thinks about strange questions and even as the questions are asked they are answered in various forms of sarcasm, indifference, questions about the questions and explanations. In other words, he is talking to himself.

The opera takes the form of five “discussions” about matters he wonders about: Why do people keep secrets about themselves? Why do the buildings in the city all line up perfectly (vertically) when the surface of the planet is round? Why is it that so many things that people do as recreation are played counter-clockwise? What has happened to the many women friends (“lovers”) he has had and “left behind” and why were they left behind? And, finally, the fact that he has recently seen a “flying carpet” (in his bedroom.)

The five “internal” discussions alternate with four reminiscences about people the old man has worked with and loved. The reminiscences are short and detailed biographies of seemingly ordinary people who in the past did extraordinary things—sometimes criminal, sometimes just brave in an unusual way—but will never be recognized for what they did. The stories will never be known, except to the audience. No one is named. These are secret lives.

The singers in the opera are not “characters” in any traditional way. They take part in the very fast “discussions” sections as voices in the old man’s musings. Then each of the singers is given one of the “biographies” as a solo aria.

• Atalanta (Acts of God) II (1982–2009) opera for man’s voice and woman’ voice, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

Three of the satellite songs from Ashley's opera Atalanta (Acts of God): “The Etchings”, “Empire” and “Au Pair”. Each one is inspired or revolving around one of the main characters of the opera, Max, Willard and Bud.

Atalanta (Acts of God) was written in the beginning of the 1980s, while Ashley was still in production for the television opera, Perfect Lives. The many hours of material were performed throughout the world in many different configurations, but this is the first time these songs have been available on CD.

• Treibstoff (1995)

• Klarinettentrio (1993)

• Luftwurzeln (1993)

• mehr oder weniger (1991)

• Streichtrio (1994)

• Zopf (1992)

• sottovoce (1998)

• Schraubdichtung (1989/90)

• Langsamer als ich dachte (1990)

• Doina (1996)

• Geräusche (1992)

• Der gefaltete Blick (1984)

• Geräuschtöne (2003)

• Instinkt (2007–2008)

• Kugel (2002)

• Nein allein (1999–2000)

• Cellotrio (2002)

• Schraubdichtung (1989–1990)

Carola Bauckholt biegt, wie sie selbst sagt, „die Instrumente nach dem Vorbild des ursprünglichen Geräuschs, das also woanders herkommt. Danach sollen sich die Instrumente richten und das sollen sie sozusagen finden, diesen Klang.“ Werkzeuge, Metallkugeln oder mechanische Geräte bieten ihr die Inspiration, irritierende Klangmischungen erzielt sie, wenn diese Original-Geräusche auf die von klassischen Instrumenten imitierten treffen.

• hellhörig (2004–2007) Geräuschoper

hellhörig geht von verschiedensten Natur- und Zivilisationsklängen aus, deren Charakter in die Notation der Instrumental- und Vokalstimmen übertragen wird. Es entsteht eine „Sinfonie der Geräusche“.
 

• Leapaday Night, Scenes 1, 2, and 3

• A Traveller’s Dream Journal, Setting A and B

• Interspecies’ Smalltalk, Part 1 and 2

A series of three pieces/suites; Leapaday Night, A Traveller's Dream Journal, and Interspecies Smalltalk involving Rhys Chatham/Ben Neill (on trumpet/mutantrumpet), Fluxus mainstay Takehisa Kosugi (violin), and Behrman himself on electronics. Behrman creates thickly layered liquid sounds utilizing this complex computer music system which absorbs, actually hears, the sounds of instrumentalists, then plays off their improvisations with its own synthesized reactions. The system consists of pitch sensors (“ears” with which it listens to the performing musicians), various music synthesizers (some homemade), a computer graphics color video display and a personal computer. “Heavy period-synth float with bare accompaniment, thankfully just-pre DX-7.”

• On the Other Ocean

• Figure in a Clearing

On the Other Ocean is an improvisation by Maggi Payne and Arthur Stidfole centered around six pitches which, when they are played, activate electronic pitch-sensing circuits connected to the “interrupt” line and input ports of a microcomputer, Kim-1. The microcomputer can sense the order and timing in which the six pitches are played and can react by sending harmony-changing messages to two handmade music synthesizers. The relationship between the two musicians and the computer is an interactive one, with the computer changing the electronically-produced harmonies in response to what the musicians play, and the musicians influenced in their improvising by what the computer does.

Figure in a Clearing, made a few months before On the Other Ocean, was the first piece of Behrman’s to use a computer for music. For Figure, the Kim-1 ran a program which varied the time intervals between chord changes. The time intervals were modelled on the motion of a satellite in falling elliptical orbit about a planet. David Gibson’s only “score’ was a list of six pitches to be used in performance, and a request that he not speed up when the computer-controlled rhythm did. The timbral richness and concentrated eloquence of his playing sprang from his own sources.

Charming booklet notes by David Behrman.

• View Finder

• Fishing for Complements

• Witch Grass

• Canyon

• Harbinger

• Crisscrossed Eights

• Ein Glaesele Warems

Unforeseen Events is the latest of many pieces Behrman has made with computer software designed to interact in real time with a solo performer. The four sections recorded here were made specifically with Ben Neill’s performance style in mind. The electronic timbres are intended to complement the sounds of his instrument—the admirable and humorous mutantrumpet, with its three separately-mutable and playable bells. Refractive Light consists of three small pieces based on an interweaving and overlapping of simple phrases. A musician strikes pitches which trigger responses in the form of sustained tones. The tones die out after a few seconds. While a tone is on it deflects the pitches of other “on” tones, so that harmonic changes occur at the on-and-off edges of overlappping layers. The idea can give rise to a kind of fanning or breathing rhythm which adapts itself to different styles of playing, and to a harmonic vocabulary with dozens or scores of family members.

• David Tudor: Rainforest II (1972)

• John Cage: Mureau (1970)

This historic release of a simultaneous performance by David Tudor and John Cage of Rainforest II and Mureau, recorded live by Radio Bremen on May 5, 1972, preserves the only surviving performance of the second of Tudor’s “Rainforest” series. In addition, it documents one of the precious few recorded collaborations between these two visionaries.

In 1970 Cage composed the piece called Mureau, in which phrases from Thoreau’s journals (in particular, passages which touch on the subject of music) are used as the springboard for an elaborate collage. The resultant fabric combines elements of sense and nonsense, as it veers between contextual meaning and a sort of abstract, linguistic vocalise. In Cage’s public readings of Mureau, he explored a number of performance variables-differences in tempo, vocal timbre, pitch, register, and dynamics. A similar range will be apparent, in fact, when listening to this recorded performance. This simultaneous performance of Mureau and Rainforest II took place in a large concert hall before an audience, rather than privately in a recording studio. Whereas in other performance realizations (such as their legendary Indeterminacy collaboration) the two men had been placed in separate isolation booths, here the two shared the same performance space, so that each could hear and see the other person’s activity. In fact, Cage and Tudor sat quite close to one another at the center of the stage, Cage performing Mureau as a four-channel realization—one live channel against three pre-recorded tracks, all of them his own voice—and Tudor actively engaged in real-time processing of Cage’s vocal material, using it to generate electronic loudspeaker-filter events.

Essential listening for anyone interested in the work of either composer.