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Reviewed by:
  • Thomas DeLio, Agostino Di Scipio, Linda Dusman, Wesley Fuller, Michael Hamman: MUSIC/TEXT II
  • Thomas Licata
Thomas DeLio, Agostino Di Scipio, Linda Dusman, Wesley Fuller, Michael Hamman: MUSIC/TEXT II Compact disc, Capstone CPS-8693, 2001; available from Capstone Records, 252 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11205, USA; Web www.capstonerecords.org/.

MUSIC/TEXT II, Capstone Records' second release of text-based pieces, presents a rich and diverse compilation of works that, like the first (MUSIC/TEXT, Capstone CPS-8669), continues to address and explore the setting of text in a contemporary musical idiom. Comprised of works composed exclusively for the electroacoustic medium (the first release consists of a superb collection of electronic and mixed ensemble pieces), MUSIC/TEXT II features the music of five very different composers, each approaching the setting of text of five very different poets/writers in exceptionally unique and highly imaginative ways.

The first work on the disc, Michael Hamman's discourse/current (2000), is based on the performance artist Chris Mann reading from his text, in representing. Mr. Hamman writes: "discourse/current is an attempt to make music with a poem that is already music . . . my intent here is to 'stay with the material,' rather than treating it as mere subject matter for transformations." A refreshing and vibrant work, discourse/ current is composed with the barest of sound materials. The work's ten individual fragments are creatively lined with sudden starts and stops, simple sine tones and flat envelopes, barely audible sounds, extended silences, and imaginativelyprocessed manipulations of the recorded voice. Remarkably, this quality of "bareness," in combination with the rather disjunctive nature of the text and the overall sonic materials, heightens and intensifies the many intricately composed details that rest on this work's surface structure. This draws the listener's attention to the smaller, more local forms, creating a fresh and engagingly discursive quality to the overall structural framework.

Linda Dusman's Becoming Becoming Gertrude (2000) impressively displays this composer's handling of only two, unaltered recorded voices (male and female) as the work's sole source material; there are no "electronic" sounds, per se. Based on a reading of a single paragraph from Gertrude Stein's novel, The Making of Americans, the work begins with each voice articulating different word fragments. As the piece unfolds, more complete fragments and sentences gradually emerge, culminating in a full reading of the text at the end of the work. Overall, the piece projects a whirlwind of isolated words and sentence fragments in various repetitive patterns, colorfully shifting textures, and riveting juxtapositions of the male and female voice. What's more, these voices are imaginatively projected in different points in space, adding to the many rich sonic manifestations the recorded materials undergo throughout.

An especially evocative and sensitive work, Vers (2001) by Wesley Fuller, is based on a selection of three complete poems and two poem fragments from Swarm, a volume of poetry by the American poet Jorie Graham. Recorded by a female voice and left unaltered throughout, the complete poems are bordered by the two fragmented poems, which begin and end the piece. The readings themselves are set against a rich amalgam of electronically processed sounds (generated with Csound) that merge, offset, and complement the text in a variety of truly exquisite ways.

Fragments for 'Tiresias' (2000), by Agostino Di Scipio, is part of a larger-scale work entitled Tiresias, a work whose text, as a whole, centers on the transportation of this mythical figure's transformative powers to contemporary society. A captivating work, Fragments for 'Tiresias' is based on two poems by the Italian poet Giuliano Mesa, who is also the reader. The poems, read in Italian and left untouched throughout, are stated in their entirety and set against an overriding sound-world rich in detail and brimming with dynamism. Largely composed of continually changing gestures and shifting rhythmic patterns of a rather grainy texture, this sound-world blends and offsets with the voice in beautifully subtle and at the same time highly dramatic ways.

The last work on the CD, think on parch (1997) by Thomas DeLio, is a stunning and highly original work. Based on a setting of four...

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