Alvin Lucier: A Celebration

Concerts

33 Lucier Celebration Concert I: Solos Friday, November 4, 2011 8pm Crowell Concert Hall Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra is one of a series of pieces for conventional musical instruments I have been making since 1982. These include Crossings, for small orchestra with slow-sweep pure wave oscillator (1982–1984); In Memoriam Jon Higgins, for clarinet with slow-sweep pure wave oscillator (1984); Septet for Three Winds, Four Strings and Pure Wave Oscillator (1985); Kettles, for five timpani with two slow-sweep pure wave oscillators (1987) and Fideliotrio, for viola, cello and piano (1987–1988). All these works explore natural timbral and spatial characteristics of sound waves. In Silver Streetcar, the player dampens the triangle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand while tapping the instrument with the other. The performance consists of moving the geographical locations of these two activities and changing the speed and loudness of the tapping. During the course of the performance, the acoustic characteristics of the folded metal bar are revealed. Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra was written expressly for Brian Johnson. The title of the work was taken from the surrealist text, Instrumentation (1922), by Luis Buñuel. Two pure wave oscillators are routed through a mixer to a pair of loudspeakers positioned on either side of the stage. The bassist stands equidistant between them. During the performance the oscillators are tuned successively to five pairs of whole tones. Against each pair, the bassist plays a series of sustained tones, Concerts Commentary by Alvin Lucier Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra,1988 for solo amplified triangle Brian Johnson, triangle A Tribute to James Tenney, 1986 for double bass and pure wave oscillators Roy Wiseman, double bass 34 tuning some of them microtonally, in steps of one-third of a semitone (33 cents). As he or she does so, audible beats are produced at speeds determined by the distances between the instrumentally and electronically generated tones. The farther apart, the faster the beating. At unison, no beating occurs. Furthermore, under certain conditions the beats may be heard to spin in elliptical patterns through space, from the higher source to the lower. The oscillators are faded in and out for each pair of tunings. The letters preceding each pair give their stereo placement. Starting with the first pair, the upper and lower tones are panned to the left and right loudspeakers, respectively. For each successive tuning, the stereo is reversed. This work was composed for A Tribute to James Tenney, a collection of music and writing honoring the composer, which appeared in Perspectives of New Music, Volume 25, numbers 1 & 2, Winter 1987 and Summer 1987. The original title was Homage To James Tenney. It was written expressly for bassist Roy Wiseman. In In Memoriam Jon Higgins, an electronically generated pure wave, flowing from a single loudspeaker, slowly sweeps through the range of the clarinet. As it does so, the clarinetist plays long tones across the ascending wave, creating interference patterns, beats of loud sound produced as the sound waves coincide. The speed of the beats is determined by the distance between the waves: the farther apart, the faster the beating. At unison, no beating occurs. At very close tunings—within a few cycles per second—the patterns may be heard to spin through space. The pure wave sweeps one semitone every 30 seconds. The clarinetist is asked to hold each tone for one minute. Typically, the tone straddles the sweeping wave equidistant on either side. Occasionally a tone starts a minute before the wave reaches unison with it; once it starts at unison it is sustained until the wave rises a whole tone above it. Three times the tone steps up or down to meet the rising wave. In Memoriam Jon Higgins, 1985 for clarinet and slow-sweep pure wave oscillator Anthony Burr, clarinet 35 In Memoriam Jon Higgins was first performed by Thomas Ridenour in December of 1984 at the Connecticut Composers Festival at Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Connecticut. In the spring of 1993, Roland Dahinden and Hildegard Kleeb gave me a panoramic photograph of the Swiss and Austrian Alps, seen from their hometown of Zug, Switzerland. I was planning a skiing trip to Switzerland and had asked them to bring me back some travel brochures. At the same time I was thinking about composing a piece for them. As soon as I saw that photograph I got the idea to transcribe...