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Round the Corners of Purgatory (1987)

by Daniel V Oppenheim

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1.
Prologue 03:39
2.
Purgatory I 05:03
3.
Lamentation 05:35
4.
Purgatory II 04:16
5.
Drifting Up 06:31
6.
Postlude 00:43

about

Round the Comers 0f Purgatory was completed in August 1987 at the Electroacoustic Music Studio of the Tel-Aviv Academy of Music, Israel. Various pipes provide the source for most sounds. Pipes were played using percussion beaters, a cello bow, or by blowing air through them and splashing them in water. Some pipes have a long sustaining sound, rather like a vibraphone. other sounds were derived from a 10 foot long pole, using 2 microphones: one laid inside it's far end and the other recording the composer as he was playing. Sounds recorded from within the pipe were filtered by it's natural resonance, a sound that could be mistaken for a vocoder type modulation. The phase difference between the two microphones provides a rather unique and somewhat crispy sound quality.

Processing techniques are a combination of both analog and digital and resemble traditional i.e. "musique concrète". Analog tape techniques include the familiar splicing, open and closed loops, tape delay, varying speed, sound multiplication, etc. The Moog Synthesizer and a DG analog ring modulator were used for spatial control. The ring-modulation was always in the sub-audio range so as not to distort the recorded sound.

Some sounds were sampled and processed digitally using the Synclavier "Sound File Management System". This enabled extremely accurate splicing and mixing of sounds and their exact placement In time via the Synclavier's elaborate Sequencer and Script programs.

The work is divided into the following sections:

Prologue
I Purgatory (I)
II Lamentation
III Purgatory (II)
IV Drifting up
Postlude

Round the Corners Of Purgatory was premiered internationally at the 1988 15CM World Music Days at Hong-Kong. Recent performances include a choreography by the Cloud Gate Dance Theater in Taiwan with outdoor performances in front of ten thousand spectators.

credits

released January 27, 2016

license

all rights reserved

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