Gaburo: Five Works for Voices, Instruments, and Electronics

On this CD:

1. Antiphony IV (Poised), for voice, piccolo, bass trombone, double bass & electronics
Composed by Kenneth Gaburo
Performed by James Fulkerson
Conducted by Kenneth Gaburo

2. String Quartet in One Movement
Composed by Kenneth Gaburo

3. Mouth-Piece: Sextet for solo trumpet
Composed by Kenneth Gaburo

4. Antiphony III (Pearl-white moments), for 16 voices & electronics
Composed by Kenneth Gaburo

Conducted by Kenneth Gaburo

5. The Flow of (u), for 3 voices
Composed by Kenneth Gaburo
Performed by Philip Larson

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Kenneth Gaburo (1926–1993) composed works for instruments, voices, electronics, multi-media, theater, and a variety of other resources. Foremost among his many interests was a concern with the voice and with language—how we shape language and how we are shaped by it—and with making works that existed somewhere between the boundaries of music and language. Of the works on this CD, three are intensely concerned with what Gaburo termed “Compositional Linguistics” (Antiphony III, Antiphony IV, and Mouth-Piece), while concerns with balance and perceptual edges seem to be his foremost concern in the other two [String Quartet in One Movement and The Flow of (u)]. In Antiphony IV (1967), for three instruments and two-channel tape, the two channels are literally separate—vocal sounds (each phoneme, in order, of the source poem) on the left channel, and electronic sounds on the right channel, with the instruments in the middle. Instrumental timbres relate to vocal phonemes; electronic splats are contrasted with delicate synthetic choirs assembled from recordings of individual phonemes; tremolos, flutters, and waverings alternate among recorded voice, electronics, and instrumental sounds. String Quartet (1956) was written just after Gaburo had returned from Rome, where he studied with Goffredo Petrassi, and the quartet is dedicated to him. It’s a passionate, driving piece, where an intense concern for the quality of line is manifest in every gesture. In Mouth-Piece (1970) the trumpeter attempts to present six contrapuntal lines simultaneously and to maintain a sense of coherent timbral identity with each. Unlike most trumpet music, where the phoneme “t” or “k” is used to articulate the trumpet, here the trumpet is used as a filter for every phoneme the voice is capable of generating. It is an amazing exposition of vocal sounds and trumpet virtuosity. For Antiphony III (1962), for sixteen voices and electronics, a poem by Virginia Hommel again provides the basis. Here, however, it is articulated contrapuntally, one word at a time, by both the chorus and the tape. Each word is clearly heard, sometimes spoken, sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted, sometimes electronically modified on the tape, in the order presented in the poem. The Flow of (u) (1974) consists of one note sung by three singers for twenty-three minutes. Here, focus is even more intense, and the attention to dynamic shaping given to the lines in the 1956 Stri! ng Quartet is here transferred to the micro-level, and worked on with the singers in an “oral tradition” manner.

Tracks:

Antiphony IV (Poised)
String Quartet in one movement
Mouth-Piece: Sextet for Solo Trumpet
Antiphony III (Pearl-white moments)
The Flow of (u)

Album Description

Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) composed works for instruments, voices, electronics, multi-media, theater, and a variety of other resources. Foremost among his many interests was a concern with the voice and with language—how we shape language and how we are shaped by it—and with making works that existed somewhere between the boundaries of music and language. Of the works on this CD, three are intensely concerned with what Gaburo termed “Compositional Linguistics” (Antiphony III, Antiphony IV, and Mouth-Piece), while concerns with balance and perceptual edges seem to be his foremost concern in the other two [String Quartet in One Movement and The Flow of (u)]. In Antiphony IV (1967), for three instruments and two-channel tape, the two channels are literally separate—vocal sounds (each phoneme, in order, of the source poem) on the left channel, and electronic sounds on the right channel, with the instruments in the middle. Instrumental timbres relate to vocal phonemes; electronic splats are contrasted with delicate synthetic choirs assembled from recordings of individual phonemes; tremolos, flutters, and waverings alternate among recorded voice, electronics, and instrumental sounds. String Quartet (1956) was written just after Gaburo had returned from Rome, where he studied with Goffredo Petrassi, and the quartet is dedicated to him. It's a passionate, driving piece, where an intense concern for the quality of line is manifest in every gesture. In Mouth-Piece (1970) the trumpeter attempts to present six contrapuntal lines simultaneously and to maintain a sense of coherent timbral identity with each. Unlike most trumpet music, where the phoneme “t” or “k” is used to articulate the trumpet, here the trumpet is used as a filter for every phoneme the voice is capable of generating. It is an amazing exposition of vocal sounds and trumpet virtuosity. For Antiphony III (1962), for sixteen voices and electronics, a poem by Virginia Hommel again provides the basis. Here, however, it is articulated contrapuntally, one word at a time, by both the chorus and the tape. Each word is clearly heard, sometimes spoken, sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted, sometimes electronically modified on the tape, in the order presented in the poem. The Flow of (u) (1974) consists of one note sung by three singers for twenty-three minutes. Here, focus is even more intense, and the attention to dynamic shaping given to the lines in the 1956 Stri! ng Quartet is here transferred to the micro-level, and worked on with the singers in an “oral tradition” manner.

Customer Reviews:

The mechanics of language sound new shapes........2002-12-12

Kenneth Gaburo was an idiosyncratic composer who refused to adhere to any of the various schools of 20th century composition. His music is rigorous and challenging, but playful in both its deconstruction of language and sound, and its asymmetric but inviting form. The works collected here display a wide range of working methods and a joy in exploration. With the exception of a string quartet, all the works deal with language and the human voice, picking both apart and exploring their physical and timbral qualities. "Antiphone IV" breaks down the text of a poem into individual phonemes, keeping them in order, but placing them within a sparse canvas with spare instrumentation and electronics. Like the fragmented text itself, the composition as a whole is composed of discrete parts which are artfully placed in unorthodox but balanced relationships. The string quartet is the most convential piece, firmly in the post-Bartok tradition, but with Gaburo's distinctive sense of form as displayed in the previous piece. Clusters of multiple sound are distinct wholes, but arranged in such a way as to keep the component parts audible in their own right. "Mouth Piece" is a work for solo trumpet, but with six parallel lines that the soloist is expected maintain distinctly. Every phoneme the voice is capable of generating is filtered through the trumpet, creating a variety of sounds that both delight and provide a map of the trumpet's topographies from the various vantage points of different air flows and vibrations. "Antiphony III" for 16 voices and electronics, keeps the words of the source poem intact, but varies the delivery and electronic transformations of each word, reversing the process of linguistic molecularisation of the first piece by weaving and melting the separate words into a writhing sound mass bubbling from within and extending sonic pseudopods and rapidly crystalizing edges. For some reason, it reminds me of an audible representation of Spinoza's univocal conception of reality. The final piece, "The Flow of (u)" simply consists of three voices singing a single continuous note, with three sets of lungs allowing for an uninterrupted tone for the 23 minute duration. Subtle variety in the work is created by slight irregularities in the singers' voices that would go unnoticed were it not for the control factor of the score's homogeneity. As in "Mouth Piece", the tensions created by testing the performers' limits add a subtle aleatory dimension to this exploration of the normally hidden idiosyncracies of the human voice.
By using the timbral physicality of the signifier as malleable compositional material, Gaburo's music lays bare the matter of meaning's communicative carrier, and integrates the imperfections of the expressive sonic device in each of us into music that's exquisite in both concept and form.

Music Review:

Music Review

music review

Recommended Music:

Better Off Alone [CD-single] [Import]

Madetoja: Ostrobothnians suite Op52; Pohjalaisia

Night Train to Nashville, Vol. 2

Music: Sunday 8 Pm [Import]

Miss Saigon [Soundtrack]

Kingdom Blow

Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart [Import] [Original recording remastered]

Not Quite There

La Embajadora de la Cancion de Antano [Import]

Mendelssohn: String Symphonies

Nothing Changes [Explicit Lyrics]

Latin Steel

I Always Feel Like [CD-single] [Explicit Lyrics]

Faith That Is Real

Thrush Hour: A Study of the Great Ladies of Jazz