2-5

combative music and its algorithmic demystification

| matthiaskranebitter

line-up: flute, soprano/tenor saxophone, e-guitar, piano, percussion, 4-channel-electronics
duration: 11 minutes
date of premiere: 01.07.2021, BLACK PAGE ORCHESTRA, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milano

The piece starts in the present and finishes in a not so distant future. All forces of human mankind are united, even the most athletic ones on the planet, for the final combat against enslavement by machines. Will humanity be able to tame the algorithm before it eats the world? You won’t believe what happens next!

https://theblackpageorchestra.bandcamp.com/track/combative-music-and-its-algorythmic-demystification

PITCH STUDY NO.2 / THe 88 piano Keys

| matthiaskranebitter

line-up: grand piano, 2 keyboards
duration: 20 minutes
date of premiere: 18.05.2022 BLACK PAGE ORCHESTRA, Musikverein Wien

exists also in an alternative version for grand piano and 1 keyboard, for 2 players or also in a 1-player-version

The piece treats each key of the piano in an informative, disinformative, narrative, musical or non-musical way, starting in order from the lowest to the highest note.

The individual octaves form 7 chapters. During the composition, the listener learns, among other things, to distinguish the rustling of wind in different types of trees, how the physical condition of guinea pigs can be changed by 8-hour exposure to a 116 hertz frequency, how the 2mm insect Lesser Waterboatman achieves a sound of 96 dB with its penis, at which cytological position in the genome of the fruit fly one can adjust the pitch of its mating call, or how often the “a” occurs in all 32 Beethoven sonatas.

No animals were harmed for the piece, except for one.

THE COMPLETE UNFIGURANTED EGALITARIAN AURAL REALISM PT.1

| matthiaskranebitter

line-up: (digital) flute, (digital) viola, electronics (version 1.2 with flute, violin and electronics)
duration: 13 minutes
date of premiere: 10.01.2019 NIMIKRY, Porgy&Bess Vienna

commissioned by and written for NIMIKRY

recorded live @ Porgy&Bess Vienna, 10.1.2019
NIMIKRY: Alessandro Baticci, digital flute,
Rafal Zalech, digital viola

“Which was why, the wraith is continuing, the complete unfiguranted egalitarian aural realism was why party-line entertainment critics always complained that the wraith’s entertainments’ public-area scenes were always incredible dull and self-conscious and irritating, that they could never hear the real meaningful central narrative conversations for all the unfiltered babble of the peripheral crowd, which they assumed the babble was some self-conscious viewer-hostile heavy-art directoral pose, instead of radical realism.” (from David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest)

Pancrace Royer: The harpsichord pieces

| matthiaskranebitter

I – La Marche de Scythes
II – La Sensible

line-up: flute/alto fulte, tenor recorder/alto recorder, harpsichord, electronics (stereo-playback plus subwoofer, clicktrack)
duration: 15 minutes
date of premiere: 13.10.2017, Airborne Extended, Minoriten Graz

The composition is based on pitch data extracted from two of the harpsichord pieces by the french baroque composer Joseph Nicolas Pancrace Royer, and an investigation in tonality.
In the first piece (la marche de scythes) all the notes of the piece where taken and sorted from the lowest to the highest. the result is an ascending, nearly chromatic line, repeating every note as often as it appears in the original piece. this leads to interesting tonal phenomenons, percepting tonality as a matter of statistical weights, as well as hearing a permanent leading-note.
The second piece steps through all the pitches of the piece in subsequently order, merging them to chords, creating kind of pseudo-cadenzas and deformed harmonic developments.

stack overflow: exploiting 24 preludes

| matthiaskranebitter

line-up: clarinet/bass clarinet, violoncello, e-zither ( or amplified zither), keyboard, drumset/ midi drumset, electronics (stereo)
duration: 14 minutes
date of premiere: 1.9.2017, Decoder Ensemble, Resonanzraum im Bunker, Hamburg

for DECODER ENSEMBLE

Der Stack overflow (Stapelüberlauf) ist ein Fehler in einem Computer-programm – es werden zu große Datenmengen in einen dafür zu kleinen reservierten Speicherbereich geschrieben, was zum Absturz des Software führen kann.
Stack overflow: exploiting 24 preludes bedient sich ausschließlich musikalischer Daten die aus den 24 Preludes op.28 von Frederic Chopin gewonnen wurde. Die Verdichtung und Überlagerung des ursprünglichen musikalischen Materials wird besonders in den Samples des Keyboards und des Midischlagzeugs deutlich – je Taste wird ein beschleunigt und gepresstes Prelude angespielt, bzw. je Schlag wird das gesamte Tonmaterial eines Preludes ausgeschüttet.
Die so entstandenen Musik sollen nicht das historische Material erkennen lassen, sondern es geht darum dass die bereits vordifferenzierte Masse, aus der hier das neue Stück herausgeschnitten wird, im Laufe der Kompositionsprozesse, die auch oft zufallsgesteuert arbeiten, die Komposition einfärben und ihr bestimmten Geruch (oder auch Gestank) verleihen. Einzig das bekannte b-Moll Prelude Op.16 lässt sich als Zitat an einer Stelle erkennen – jenes Prelude, das bereits im Original eine angemessene Notendichte aufweist die keine Steigerung durch digitale Möglichkeiten benötigt.

Der Remix-gedanke des Stücks liegt nicht im Widererkennen des historischen Materials, sondern in der Idee, als Rohstoff für das neue Stück ein bereits im Vorfeld (in der Vergangenheit) aufs höchste differenzierte und gestaltete Material zu verwenden, das im Laufe der Kompositionsprozesse, besonders bei den quasi zufallsgesteuerten Deformationsprozessen, Kräfte ausüben, die die Komposition attackieren und in überraschende Richtungen drängen.