Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

'L'apparition des atomes' or 'The Manifestation (Apparition) of the Atoms' was commissioned by the School of Art Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and represents a Hommage à Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). The original 'acousmatic' version for Virtual Analog Synthesizers and Quadrophonic Sound Diffusion intended as a collaborative project involving five international composers to be presented as part of 'When we Collide': A Collaborative Sound-Installation at the Soundislands Festival: 2nd International Symposium on Sound and Interactivity (SI15), 18-23 August, 2015, School of Art Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The alternative version for Bass Flute, Virtual Analog Synthesizers and Quadrophonic Sound Diffusion was especially arranged for American low flute specialist Peter Sheridan and the 2015 Victorian Flute Guild 'Melbourne Composers Concert', and features the original 1 to 5-second twenty melodic patterns, as well as the five unique 50-second modules - the melodic patterns recomposed (i.e. octave displacement) for the additional modular bass flute part.

The work adopts Milton Babbitt's 12-tone row and basic transformations from Three Compositions for Piano (1947) as the basic pitch material (Bb, Eb, F, D, C, Db, G, B, F#, A, Ab and E), and serves as an exploration of Babbitt's time point system of integral serialism. In this case, the intention of the compositional approach is a musical portrayal of the constant, random motion of atoms depicted in the title of the composition. The twenty melodic patterns, organized in modular fashion form the basis for the melodic and rhythmic materials accorded to the soloist. These same twenty melodic patterns as well as five unique modules structured around tempo canons (or diminution canons, expressed as polyrhythmic ratios: 4/5/6/7; 8/9/10/11; 12/13/14/15; 16/17/18/19 and 20/21/22/23) are given an electroacoustic treatment via patches sounding from a series of Virtual Analog Synthesizers that include the Matrix-12 V, Arp 2600 V, CS-80V, Jupiter-8V, Mini V, Modular V, Prophet V, Oberheim SEM V, Solina V, Vox V, and Wurlitzer V. In performance, all audio materials are played back utilizing the shuffle play mode on a Music Manager and Player, with the performer accorded with the following instructions: "these phrases may be enchained in any sequence, repeated, or silenced for an equal time and in any relationship with the Virtual Analog Synthesizer modules and melodic patterns (octave displacement may also be applied to individual notes or entire phrases, and all transformations are permissible: original, inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion)."

Work Details

Year: 2015

Instrumentation: Bass Flute, electronics (operator).

Duration: 8 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Professional

Dedication note: Hommage à Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)

Written for: Peter Sheridan

Commission note: Commissioned by the School of Art Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)

First performance: 19 Aug 15. ‘When we collide’: A Collaborative Sound-Installation, Soundislands Festival: 2nd International Symposium on Sound and Interactivity (SI15), School of Art Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc associated with this work:
Virtual Analog Synthesizers, Quadrophonic Sound Diffusion, Milton Babbitt (1916-2011), Tempo Canons