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Godfried-Willem Raes
Paradiso
[Walpurgisnacht scene from technofaustus]
for vibi, player piano, harma, klung, piperola and optional singers/musicians
duration: 10'00"
Somewhere in the end of the wet summer of 2001, Paul Koek asked me to participate in a theatrical event he was to set up at the Amsterdam Paradiso. He wanted some of my music automats to take part and had a very precize script in mind. We decided that <Klung>, <Harma> and the newly built <Vibi> where going to participate. The problem however was, that I, nor anyone else, had a piece wherein these three instrument would play together. In request to this need, I then wrote <Trio Paradiso>, meeting the timing demands as laid out in his script. This little trio, exacty 5 minutes in length, was premiered at the Amterdam Paradiso on monday november 12th of 2001, accompanied by two little girls playing with an Aibo robot..., illustrating machine learning.
After this premiere I felt the little piece touched on some compositional algorithms that had a potential of being much further developed. Also, I thougth the piece needed a better ending. So I took up the code again and rewrote it completely. First of all, I extended the orchestration to also incorporate the player piano as well as the piperola. I added (optional) parts for live musicians as well. Their 'score' appears as it is calculated in real time, on the computerscreen. Instruments I had in mind are: tuba, flute, violin/viola, clarinet and/or backing vocals.
Second I developed the very simple modulation scheme I had in the trio, into some form of spectral modulation system. Here every modulation is prepared by shifting some series of partials in the spectrum such that this one 'prepares' for the modulation to come. My software based harmony library (a part of my GMT composition language project) was extended with a set of new functions to implement the requirements for such a harmony system: spectral stretching, compression, non linear spectra, irrational spectra...
After I finished the first part according to this new set of rules, I started working on the ending. It eventually became a second part in its own right. Here no modulations take place. The whole timespan of the finale is governed by the process of slowly compressing the spectrum of the low C to half the original proportions: a square rooted spectrum.
Premiere & public performances:
<Trio Paradiso> : 12.11.2001 Paradiso - Amsterdam
<Paradiso>:
01.12.2001 - M&M ensemble - Herne (Germany)
04.12.2001 - M&M-ensemble, Logos Tetrahedron. (Belgium)
12.08.2002 - M&M-ensemble, Logos Tetrahedron.
06.11.2002 - M&M-ensemble, Lille, (France)
28.11.2002 - M&M ensemble, Enschede (Netherlands)
23-24.07.2003 - M&M ensemble, Logos Tetrahedron
04.10.2003 - M&M ensemble, The Hague (Netherlands) [ recorded for VPRO radio].
A CD recording of this composition is available on LPD008: M&M ensemble.
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