{"id":1220,"date":"2019-03-11T12:11:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T12:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2019-03-11T12:11:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T12:11:45","slug":"premiere-of-durchhaltevermogen-in-munster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1220","title":{"rendered":"Premiere of Durchhalteverm\u00f6gen in M\u00fcnster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2018 I was in M\u00fcnster with <i>edimpro<\/i> colleagues Dimitris Papageorgiou and Karin Schistek to give improvisation workshops to students at the Hochschule f\u00fcr Musik. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uniarts.fi\/en\/mieko-kanno\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mieko Kanno<\/a> was with us to perform a lovely new work by Dimitris for electric violin and computer called <em>deti. <\/em>That work showcased Mieko&#8217;s research project \u2018Modelling a Virtual Violin\u2019 with the \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/pure.hud.ac.uk\/en\/publications\/octetviolins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Octet Violins<\/a>\u2019 software used to improve the sound of the electric violin. This software used impulse responses from violins in the Reid Museum at the University of Edinburgh. It was developed by the ever brilliant Alex Harker and was by far the best electric violin sound I&#8217;ve ever heard. You can hear the results of that research in the concert where she premiered <em>deti <\/em>in Helsinki:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MuTeFest&#039;17: E-violin and electronics\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/48pXfIjTpJM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Back to M\u00fcnster though: apart from the workshops, Mieko gave the premiere of my <a href=\"http:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/work.php?workid=426\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Durchhalteverm\u00f6gen<\/a> on May 13th (2018). I <a href=\"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1105\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blogged about<\/a> this obliquely a while back. We went into the studio the next day to record. At the end of a typical section-by-section recording session, Mieko did a full performance to camera. It was the best and fastest performance thus far. You can see it below but before hand it&#8217;s worth reading the programme note, to get a handle on the provenance of the piece:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>durchhalteverm\u00f6gen<\/i> was written for Mieko Kanno over about six months beginning late 2016. It is dedicated to the composer, violinist, and improvisor <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Malcolm_Goldstein\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Malcolm Goldstein<\/a>. Mieko and I share an enormous respect and admiration for Mr. Goldstein&#8217;s music and his impact on contemporary violin playing. Speaking personally, his improvisations both in live and recorded form have offered me some of the most profound and moving experiences not just of late but of my whole life. I&#8217;m very grateful for his music.<\/p>\n<p>But how strange to write a highly detailed composition and dedicate it to a master improvisor. Was I transcribing an improvisation and calling it my own? (<i>Certainly not.<\/i>) Was I trying to &#8220;capture the spirit&#8221; of an improvisation? (<i>No. Not really.<\/i>) Was I trying to capture anything? (<i>No. Release something rather than capture it.<\/i>) So what&#8217;s the connection? (<i>The spirit (I hope) and some of the playing techniques.<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p>The title can be translated from the German as <i>stamina<\/i>, <i>staying power<\/i>, or <i>power of endurance<\/i>. More appealing is the clumsy-literal translation of this compound noun&#8217;s three units: <i>through-holding-power<\/i>:<\/p>\n<p><i>Through<\/i> as in through-composed: not only is this work in one continuous movement but it lacks, in its raw construction at least, formal sectional variety or opposition. <i>Through<\/i> also as in the biblical (via Bergman) <i>through a glass darkly<\/i> (a poor image or reflection perhaps: (my) humility in the face of (his) genius).<\/p>\n<p><i>Holding<\/i> as in supporting (a weight, which takes effort) but also holding back, suspending (which takes a completely different kind of effort). And of course holding a tone, a bow, and pushing through.<\/p>\n<p><i>Power<\/i> not in the sense of raw muscle or power over others, but power as in poise, mastery, the power of technical accomplishment, the power of multivalent interpretation; to be able to hold and present seemingly opposing states or views of an object, as in the <i><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Catu%E1%B9%A3ko%E1%B9%ADi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Catuskoti<\/a><\/i> paradox. (Take for example the question &#8220;Is this piece an improvisation?&#8221; <i>Catuskoti<\/i> insists that there are four, not two, possible answers: true, false, true and false, or neither true nor false, with the latter two being surely the most interesting responses.)<\/p>\n<p><i>durchhalteverm\u00f6gen<\/i> was generated with the <i>jitterbug<\/i> algorithm I developed using my <i><a href=\"http:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/sc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">slippery chicken<\/a><\/i> algorithmic composition software. After much tweaking this created a raw form of rhythms and pitches upon which a detailed reading was superimposed (an interpretation, a <i>composer&#8217;s cut<\/i>, you might say). Next of course comes the violinist&#8217;s reading. Then the listener&#8217;s. (<i>Did I really compose this piece? True? False? True and False?<\/i> \u2026)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Durchhaltevermo\u0308gen\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7Y_ghBCPZQE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2018 I was in M\u00fcnster with edimpro colleagues Dimitris Papageorgiou and Karin Schistek to give improvisation workshops to students at the Hochschule f\u00fcr Musik. Mieko Kanno was with us to perform a lovely new work by Dimitris for electric violin and computer called deti. That work showcased Mieko&#8217;s research project \u2018Modelling a Virtual [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,27,11,165,137,52,108],"tags":[3,144,147,177,178],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-algorithmic-composition","category-composition","category-composition-documentation","category-folkwang","category-performances","category-recording","category-slippery-chicken","tag-algorithms","tag-folkwang","tag-germany","tag-munster","tag-violin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1225,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/1225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}