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Available Instruments

by William Kleinsasser
Cycling '74, San Francisco, CA, 2002
Audio CD, 44'27"
C74-o07

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium

stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

Some of my students at the Conservatory question my sanity. That is a positive attitude in a student. They shouldn't take for granted that the teacher is in any way a normal person, much less that what he or she she says makes sense. Teachers, by their experience, are biased and opinionated individuals who stick to guidelines of good conduct and standards of good taste originating in those days when the world was full of stuffy old things and devoid of the excitement that can be found online and in the clubs and at the parties where they fraternise. Having in one class both would-be producers of popular music and students of classical instruments, both operatic singers and builders of harpsichords, it is easy for me to shake the beliefs of at least one group at a time, and that is what I love to do. I admit, it doesn't take much effort. Most of them believe that what they recently discovered is "new" and that their ideas of what music should sound like is really contemporary if not the only road to the salvation of musical taste for the generations to come.

The producers generally think that electronics is where the action is, with acoustical sources of sound being only the occasion for some digital transformations. The classicals on the other hand, believe that their sounds should not be tampered with and that nothing good can come from anything but the mishandling of wood, string, brass or vocal chord. I forgive them. After all, they are students and they should take their trade seriously. What they find hard to believe, what they find hard to imagine even, is the possibility of superposing classical and electronic sounds and letting them interact so as to enhance the quality and richness of both. Of course the idea is as old as the teremin, but they are young and they have 'radical' ideas.

The two pieces by William Kleinsasser on this cd are possibly the best pedagogical examples of what my students fail to believe. In both cases, the final mix is clear, understandable and balanced. In neither, the acoustic/classical or the digital dominate and in both, the combined result is more than a mere superposition. However, both pieces fail to excite. There is a smoothness and predictability that makes it hard to stay enthousistic after the third listening or so. And that is fatal in the long run.

Available Instruments is a piece for piano and computer. It was recorded in May 2001, in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall at Towson University, with Kleinsasser on computer and Daniel Koppelman at the ivory keyboard. It is based on two ideas: temporal complexity through the development of musical material in several timescales and the contrast between highly abstract and expressive musical characters. Both the piano and the computer partake in these processes, so the old and culturally laden roles of the mechanical and the human, the emotional and the intellectual are carefully and effectively avoided. Maybe it is exactly this careful approach that leaves the music rather soulless and unengaging.

In Double Concerto, several modalities of performance are contrasted: the solo virtuoso concert, the chamber music context, large ensemble performances and the presentation of machine-realised music. A chamber orchestra, computer and two soloists (cello and viola), are conducted by Paul Rardin in this recording from August 2001 in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall at Towson University. Again, William Kleinsasser played the computer. All performers do an outstanding job and the overall impression is one of precision and professionality. "Well done!", I would should at the end. But there has been no event, no really moving or puzzling or memorable thing apart from the mere fact that it was nice.

I wonder what would happen if Kleinsasser left behind the political correctness and pedagogical clarity in his compositions. If he applied the experience gained from these pieces and performances for the expression of some intra-musical ideas? Surely his music would not be adopted by the house or techno scene and the clubs will not use it for a warm up or a backdrop, but it might have more to say and it would be better remembered.

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