Strobing Questions:
Alexander Schubert’s Sensate Focus Interview : Abi Bliss
The Hamburg composer explains why there's more to his music than flash performance The partnership between science and music stretches back at least as far as the sixth century BC, when Pythagoras unwittingly sowed the seeds a thousand piano tuners' headaches with his attempt to define perfect intervals. And from Xenakis's UPIC computer, with its groundbreaking sonic painting interface, to the transmissions of pulsar signals from Jodrell Bank telescope at the heart of Gérard Grisey's Le Noir de l'Étoile, countless events over the 37-year history of Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival have been inspired by everything from genetics, psychology and mathematics to the cutting edge of music technology.
When I was at contemporary music concerts I used to miss the energy on stage, the aggressive performances This year's festival is no exception, with the premiere on Friday 28 November by Plus-Minus of Alexander Schubert's Sensate Focus, a work based upon intriguing and disturbing 1970s neuroscience experiments. Animal lovers, look away now.
Scored for electric guitar, bass clarinet, violin, percussion and electronics, Sensate Focus has its roots in 'Cats Reared in Stroboscopic Illumination: Effects on Receptive Fields in Visual Cortex' a 1973 paper by a trio of scientists describing how kittens reared in an environment where the only source of light was a strobe every two seconds grew up unable to understand Born in Bremen and based in Hamburg, 35 year-old Schubert movement and, when their brains were dissected, had creates music that moves too fast and unpredictably to be pigeonholed. He describes his nervy, energetic compositions as significant differences from usual in their visual cortexes. Replacing the hapless test felines with the hcmf// audience, ‘mostly at the border of contemporary music and other Schubert's piece involves brief half-second flashes from genres: techno, free jazz and improvised music’. So 2013’s spotlights trained upon each of the four performers and Lucky Dip for midi-drumkit, keyboard, electric guitar and light synchronised with the music. projections harnesses some of the complex textures and supercharged drill 'n' bass rhythms of Aphex Twin, whilst Your Fox's, A Dirty Gold from 2011 combines punk rock, operatic ‘The title Sensate Focus describes the shifting of the focus away singing and motion-sensor electronics. from the purely musical in the performance,’ he elaborates. ‘The musicians' presence on the stage and their movements in performing the sounds become equally important, so it has a According to Schubert, his pick 'n' mix approach is an intuitive strong theatrical effect.’ Governed by a strict timeline in order one, born out of what he loves when immersed in each different scene. ‘When I was at contemporary music concerts I to keep up with the choreographed light effects, the players' movements also form part of the score. ‘Some of the sounds used to miss the energy on stage, the aggressive supplied by the performers have a gestural feel to them as well, performances, whereas at improvised concerts I would miss such as a glissando movement or some staccato hitting, where the structured or well organised elements you would have in the timing is very precise but there are certain aspects that can traditional composed music,’ he explains. ‘So basically it's a very selfish approach, trying to bring on stage what I would like be left to improvisation.’ to hear.’
Strobing Questions: Alexander Schubert's Sensate Focus
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Photographs (c) privat ‘It has a very minimal, clean electronic sound to it,’ he adds. ‘It really doesn't sound a lot like acoustic chamber music; it has a very sterile electronic feel.’ Sensate Focus is the latest in a succession of pieces where Schubert playfully explores the links between gesture and sound. Most recently, HELLO required musicians to interpret an audiovisual score consisting of film of Schubert performing a number of actions inside - and at one point, energetically dashing outside - his apartment. ‘For that piece the notation is rather free in terms of which pitches to produce, besides being very strict in a rhythmical sense," he says. "I was interested in looking to the creativity of the performers who would interpret the piece and how they would translate those movements into sound. I wanted to create a kind of logic for the piece at the beginning, a formal approach, and then the whole fun of the piece is in trying to destroy that as it progresses.’ In contrast, Sensate Focus has less room for individual expression. ‘It stresses the artificial or mechanical aspect of movement and performance a bit more than other works of mine. It's very strict in terms of general progression, which
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makes it a bit like a dance or theatrical piece, whereas with other pieces I've written, it's more about the gestural expressivity and interaction or improvisation through the gestures, especially incorporating sensors that sense body motion during the performance and turning that into music.’ Given the concepts explored in his work, it's no surprise to discover that Schubert's own background is in neurobiology, with part of his studies spent modelling intelligent systems of neurons at the University of Leipzig. However, audiences need not fear that his current success as a composer is just a front for carrying out experiments. ‘I still feel strongly about a lot of those topics but I don't consider myself a highly scientific composer where I try to create pieces which work solely as a test scenario,’ he says. ‘But I'm definitely inspired by it and in small ways it finds its way into my compositions, without being the driving force behind what I do.’
Alexander Schubert @
2014
Friday 28 November | Plus-Minus featuring Sensate Focus
@hcm fuk
Fri 21 - Sun 30 November 2014