Kees Tazelaar’s multichannel fixed media composition Viewpoints, commissioned by GRM, will premiere on 15 February 15 2025 at Maison de la Radio et de la Musique – Studio 104, as part of the INA/GRM concert series Akousma. More info about the concert can be found here.
Viewpoints is based on circuits that Jaap Vink demonstrated during his lessons in the 1980s. In the realisation of Viewpoints, however, no interaction took place with the circuits – an important characteristic of Vink’s working method – but the gradual timbre changes were ‘programmed’ with control voltages instead. At the same time, a certain degree of coincidence was incorporated into the circuits with the help of random control voltage generators: even when a control voltage program was repeated, the sounding result was always slightly different.
After working with these circuits in many studio sessions over a period of several months, a recording of more than 29 minutes was selected on the basis of which the composition was further designed. That recording was transposed a number of times, after which a second control voltage program consisting of very slow envelopes determined the balance between the original recording and its transpositions. An accidental silence two-thirds of the way through was emphasised with a caesura, resulting in a two-part large form. Finally, preserved material recorded in the studio in Utrecht in 1984–85 was integrated into the composition at a few places.