The Voice of the Carnyx | Concert | NottNOISE 

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Part of NottNOISE New Music Marathon, 29 November 2020. For full programme see www.lakesidearts.org.uk/NottNoiseMarathon
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Annachiara Gedda Echoes
Ronald MacNiven Gotham Soliloquy
John Kenny The Cry of the Wolf
Dorian Kelly DR1
John Kenny The Voice of the Carnyx
John Kenny, carnyx and trombone
www.carnyx.org.uk
Antony Clare, piano
Annachiara Gedda Echoes
Echoes, for trombone and piano, is inspired by the acoustic phenomenon of echo, whose origins are to be found in Greek mythology. Echo, a nymph, whose ability to speak was cursed by Hera - making Echo able to repeat the most recently spoken words of another person - because she betrayed the goddess’ trust. Later she fell madly in love with Narcissum, but being unable to confess her love - repeating the last words he uttered - she unnerved him, making him think it was a joke. Narcissum's rejection of the nymph’s love drew upon him the vengeance of gods that made him fall in love with his own image, whereas Echo’s hopeless love made her fade away leaving only her voice. The piece begins with distant reverberations and microtonal oscillations, followed by a more dramatic part in which the piano’s low register is transformed into a sort of perpetual motion whereas the right hand presents melodic fragments, reverberated by the trombone. These two sections are gradually exasperated, and the sound distorted and made unstable. Like a race against time the two instruments chase each other creating countless delays in a crescendo of dynamics which ends in a fortissimo chord, as a last desperate cry of Echo; only distant reverberation survives and everything gradually fades away into a long sound tail.
Ronald MacNiven Gotham Soliloquy
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
John Kenny Cry of the Wolf (Ran Na Madadh~Allaidh)
In Cry of the Wolf, I explore the purest sounds I can obtain on the instrument, and their systematic coloration with degrees of vibrato, pitch bending, addition of voice to the tone, inhaled tones, varied tonguing techniques, and control of the amount of air allowed into the pure note. The general dynamic level is quiet.
The title of the piece, and the sound world I try to evoke, came to me during a solitary walk through the harsh, windswept wilderness Cape Wrath. From time immemorial one of the most feared, mysterious and yet horribly tangible spirits recognised by all Europeans is the Wolf - and so I have tried to identify with that spirit, to capture my own fantasy in an animist piece. It is an incantation, both to emulate and to appease that spectral beast.
Dorian Kelly DR1
DR 1 is a piece for solo bass trombone and fixed media (audio track). The foundation of the piece is the audio track which plays a ‘shruti box’ type drone on the note D and implies the key of D Major. Super-imposed on the D Major drone are other pitches that periodically push the tonality away from D Major tonal centre, as the audio track progresses. This allows the soloist to explore all twelve tones of the chromatic scale. The soloist’s sheet music is organised in passages of time (in relation to the audio track) and for each section, suggested pitches, dynamics and articulations are provided. The soloist is encouraged to use this as a guide, with the instructions that within each section of time, the given notes can be played in any order (apart from the first & last notes), played in any octave, repeated as required and lastly that the rhythmic elements are decided by the performer.
John Kenny The Voice of the Carnyx
This piece is for one live and four carnyces multi-tracked, and as such it was recorded in single takes by John Whiting in the main hall of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
This is the first ever notated piece for the carnyx, and the first composition for the instrument for at least 1,800 years - since then many composers have written for it, in a huge variety of combinations. The carnyx has sprung back to life, and I hope that other players will now help to enrich its voice.
To learn more about the carnyx and read the rest of the programme note for this work, please listen to John Kenny’s talk on ‘How to play the carnyx’: • How to Play the Carnyx...