HUGH DAVIES

 Tapestries AG04 CD eu 13,00
 

Hugh Davies è stato uno dei maestri della musica sperimentale contemporanea. La sua instancabile ricerca per l'invenzione e la sua accuratezza storica, lo hanno portato ad esplorare diversi campi in musica. Questa è una selezione dei suoi lavori elettronici, di un settore quindi fra i meno conosciuti della sua vasta attività, scelti da egli stesso per rappresentare il suo personale approccio alla materia.
Ora che egli non è più qui con noi, questa collezione rimane come una impressionante fotografia della sua creatività in musica. Nel più ampio senso, come era suo solito.
"Quando iniziai la mia carriera musicale nella metà degli anni 60 io pensavo a me stesso come ad un compositore con un forte interesse in quella che allora era conosciuta come musica elettronica, specialmente nella musica elettronica dal vivo. I miei primi lavori con l’elettronica dal vivo mi portarono presto a quello che divenne il fuoco principale delle mie attività creative, inventando e suonando su nuovi, inusuali strumenti amplificati. Dato che ero stato principalmente coinvolto in esecuzioni dal vivo avevo composto, in confronto, poca musica elettronica su nastro;per quanto, in aggiunta al mio piccolo studio casalingo, avessi avuto libero accesso ad uno studio universitario per 25 anni (modesto per i primi 15 anni, poi ben equipaggiato). Questo album contiene le mie più sostanziali composizioni con questo mezzo, per nastro preregistrato o CD. Le versioni originali di quattro di queste cinque composizioni elettroniche avevano una connessione con il teatro. (...)
Natural Images (1976) e Tapestries (1982-83) furono ambedue commissionate da piccole compagnie di danza britanniche (...)
Vision (1987) è una espansione della sezione per nastro della mia composizione per teatro danzato I Have a Dream (1984-85), e materaile simile viene usato nel solo lavoro che non ha collegamenti teatrali, Celeritas (1987). From Trees and Rocks (2002) ha una origine abbastanza differente, essendo statomi commissionato come una delle cinque guide sonore per museo, per una esibizione a Colonia, in cui i visitatori camminavano all’interno della galleria indossando delle cuffie, così creando la propria personale interazione fra la guida sonora selezionata ed i lavori artistici esposti."
(Hugh Davies)`

 

Libretto di 16 pagine con note di Hugh Davies e David Toop.

 

Hugh Davies was one of the masters of contemporary experimental music. His tireless search for musical invention and his historical accuracy led him to explore different fields in music. This one is a selection of his lesser known electronic pieces, that he choose to represent his own approach to the matter.
Now that he’s not more with us this collection remains as an outstanding picture of his creativity in music. In the broader sense, as he was used to do.  
“When I began my musical career in the mid-1960s I thought of myself as a composer with a strong interest in what was then known as electronic music, especially live electronic music. My early work with live electronics soon led me to what has become the main focus of my creative activities, inventing and performing on new, usually amplified instruments. Because I have been primarily involved in live performance I have composed comparatively little taped electronic music, even though, in addition to my small home studio, I had free access to a university studio for 25 years (modest for the first 15 years, and then well-equipped). This album contains my most substantial compositions in the medium, for prerecorded tape or CD. With the exception of the opening section of Vision, which was included on the cover CD of an issue of Avant magazine, none of these works has previously been recorded commercially.(...)
The original versions of four of these five electronic compositions had a theatrical connection. (...)
Natural Images (1976) and Tapestries (1982-83) were both commissioned by small British modern dance companies (...). Vision (1987) is an expansion of the tape sections of my dance theatre composition I Have a Dream (1984-85), and similar material is used in the only work without a theatrical link, Celeritas (1987). From Trees and Rocks (2002) has a rather different origin, having been commissioned as one of five sonic museum-guides for an exhibition in Cologne, at which individual visitors walked around the galleries wearing headphones, creating their own interactions between the selected sonic guide and the works of art on display.”
(Hugh Davies)
 
16 pages booklet with liner notes by Hugh Davies and David Toop.
Biography


Hugh Davies (b. Exmouth, Devon, 1943, d. 2005) was a freelance composer, instrument inventor, performer and musicologist specialising in the new sound sources of the 20th century. He studied music at Oxford University, 1961-64 (BA), and was the assistant to the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne, 1964-66.
As a Researcher at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales of the French Radio in 1966-67 he compiled a catalogue of electronic music compositions. From 1967 to 1986 he was the founder-director, and 1986-91 the research consultant, of the Electronic Music Studio, Goldsmiths' College, University of London.
In 1986-93 he was the external consultant for electronic musical instruments at the Gemeentemuseum, the Hague. He has been a co-founder of several British and international contemporary music organisations, including Secretary of the newly-founded International Confederation for Electroacoustic Music (1982-86). In 1999 he became a part-time Researcher in Sonic Art at the Centre for Electronic Arts, Middlesex University, London. As a composer, apart from more or less traditionally notated music for conventional instruments, Davies was primarily concentrated on electronic music (live and on tape) and music theatre, since 1967 especially on works for his invented amplified instruments. Among his commissions were several works for modern dance groups. He invented some 130 concert instruments, sound installations and sound sculptures, and gave more than 180 solo concerts and lecture-recitals on his instruments, which have featured on over 50 published recordings. Thirty of his compositions have been recorded commercially (some in more than one version), and they have been performed and/or broadcast in 25 countries; his instruments, sound sculptures and other work have been exhibited in 13 countries. Apart from solo performances, primarily on his own invented instruments, Hugh Davies also played in duos with Hans-Karsten Raecke and Max Eastley, and was a member of Strings With and Without Evan Parker and the Electroacoustic Cabaret; previous groups have included Music Improvisation Company, Gentle Fire, Naked Software, The Ferals and Voices from Somewhere.
Davies' most recent activities included a greater concentration on sound installations. Some of them have been exhibited several times in the last few years, in Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada.
Hugh Davies' writings on music have been published in 17 countries and translated into 11 languages.
Publications include International Electronic Music Catalog (compiler; 1968 - a revised version is planned for publication on the internet), 305 entries in The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (1984), 82 entries in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd. edition, 2001), 4 entries in The Dictionary of Art (1996), contributions to six other dictionaries and chapters in 20 books and exhibition catalogues.
 

lista brani / track list

1)  CELERITAS  8'37"    MP3 SAMPLE
2)  NATURAL IMAGES  12'46"    MP3 SAMPLE
3)  TAPESTRIES  8'26"    MP3 SAMPLE
4)  FROM TREES AND ROCKS  9'48"    MP3 SAMPLE
5)  VISION  17'00"    MP3 SAMPLE
 

pubblicato / released
03 / 12 / 2005
recensioni - reviews
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