absolutely thrilled to be able to introduce you to this freshly uploaded recording of bet denagel, for Baroque violin, masterfully performed here by Emma Lloyd (collaborator and dedicatee).
We made this studio recording as part of the concert preparations; an event that itself went on well into the wee small hours of the night, expertly assisted by Emma’s brother, recording engineer, David Lloyd. The close mic setup captures all of the little cracks, glitches and nuances that are an absolutely integral part of the composition: I recommend a good pair of headphones for a really intimate listening experience.
I’ve written some words about the piece in a previous post (which, if you missed, you can view here) so I won’t duplicate too much now. That said, the performance conditions for the piece require a substantial detuning of the Baroque instrument, creating a highly unstable instrumental canvas with which the various gestural materials interact. The violin becomes an environment where the material is transformed by the intrusion of performative ‘glitches’ such as involuntary pitch-falters and substantial bow noise. The composition is also written in the form of a matrix: a interconnected grid of modules of music through with the performer can travel at will. As a result, the length of the composition in performance can highly vary. This recording is just over 20 minutes; the premiere was nearly 28.
Huge thanks are obviously due to both Emma and David for their hard work preparing and making this recording, which I am loving more and more every time I listen to it. The premiere performance (which in itself was absolutely stunningly played as well) was recorded as well and I’ll throw a copy of that in your direction as well as soon as its in a state suitable for upload.
Hope you enjoy it!
Matthew