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Rotary/Lateral (Rondo) : for cello, wine glasses and electronics

Rotary/Lateral (Rondo) was commissioned for cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, and premiered at the Ars Electronica Centre, Linz, in October 2010 and subsequently selected for performance at the International Computer Music Conference 2011. The work sets up a number of ‘continua’ which it attempts to traverse: that between the rotary (physical) input to the wine glasses and the lateral (bowed) input to the cello – this being mediated somewhat by the work’s utilisation of the Bach bow which allows for all four strings of the cello to be played simultaneously; between inharmonic and harmonic (even tonal) sounds; between scored fixity and improvisation; between electronic restatement of acoustic material and palpably ‘manipulated’ sound. Rotary/lateral investigates the shifting balance between the composer’s issuing of an instruction set (in notation or in other coded forms) and trust in the musicianliness of the performers engaged in each specific performance, regarding this as one of the most characteristic aspects of different historical periods, and an index of the key aesthetic, ethical and economical underpinnings of musical activity. As articulated in Waters 2012 (submission 1) my concern is with “aspects of performing which enable us to evaluate it as a singular event… … I have become increasingly interested in the extent to which… …subtle details, not easily addressed by notation, are dependent upon direct communication with the performer. My work is thus increasingly specific to individual performers, emerging out of an engagement with their particular performative ‘truths’. The degree of reflection and time invested remain unchanged, but the role (and content) of the scored material is reduced. I regard the inefficiencies which arise out of this approach as a recuperation of a situation of ‘joined-up musicianliness’ in which the responsibilities for musical activity are somewhat distributed, and the roles of ‘professionalised’ musical practice [usefully] blurred.”