Page 138 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

Musicological perspectives on composing 127

piece. Only now, after the entire piece has been finished, does Ciciliani
establish the score (until then everything had been stored on an audio
workstation).

Karlheinz Essl, “Herbecks Versprechen”
Electronic sound performance upon a poem by Ernst Herbeck. World
premiere by Karlheinz Essl at the Novomatic Forum in Vienna on 10 March
2014.
November/December 2013: Talks to Johann Feilacher, the curator of
the Haus der Künstler in Gugging, about a commission for a composi-
tion that tackles works by Gugging artists. Chooses Ernst Herbeck’s
poem, “Das Leben” [Life]. The commission is formalised the following
January.
December 2013: Listens to the original sound material when Herbeck
recited several of his poems. Because of his cleft palate, Herbeck can barely
articulate. Essl is fascinated by his determination to express himself. Starts
electronic processing of the spoken material, including with granular-synthesis
software (filter processes based on spectral analysis).
January 2014: Place and date of the world premiere are set: at the
Novomatic Forum in Vienna on 10 March 2014. Finds the ambiguous title
“Herbecks Versprechen” [“Versprechen” means both “promise” and “slip of
the tongue”], which only contains one vowel, “e”. Initially plans to sub-
divide the piece into three movements. Experiments with various softwares
(alongside granular synthesis, TRAX, SPEAR, etc.) in the programming
languages MaxMSP; develops algorithms: “Really enjoying improvising
with this!” Produces different types of texture. Remembers a soundtrack he
created years ago (“es wird”, generative sound and text installation, 2000)
that also worked on a speech recording, which opens up further and new
possibilities. Further expands and finalises resources for sound processing by
using various sound processors (flanger, frequency shifter) and integrating
audio plug-ins (Sound Magic Spectrals) developed by his composer friend
Michael Norris –“I’ve got the feeling that I’ve more or less finished
the instrumental development now”.There followsa “phase of intensive
rehearsals”.
February 2014: Works on the formal progression, which he intends to
differentiate clearly from his reference piece, Herbert Eimert’s “Epitaph für
Aikichi Kuboyama” (1960–1962). In contrast with Eimert’s distortion of the
original voice, Essl wants to let Herbeck’s voice emerge gradually from abstract
sounds that start off sounding like breathing. Bit by bit, he establishes the
following progression through permanent transitions: “Breathing – sputtering –
stuttering – whispering – choir – groove – slurring – speaking – singing – like
an organ [Orgeln]”.Further fine-tunes the sequence; establishes the user inter-
face or “score”. Records two reference recordings and decides to perform the
pieces using four channels.