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LISTENING STOCK
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Daniel Muzyczuk
Arturas Bumšteinas x Melos Collective
This new cycle is challenging. First of all it might seem disappointing to the ear. A person familiar with the music of the composer would expect to hear music that might be rooted in conceptual art or minimalism, but which is, nevertheless, usually music. If we understand music as organized sound, then what we experience are musical works. The difference is that Bumšteinas does not seem so interested in the sound itself. To him, it seems incidental or secondary. Other stakes are at play. A performer is usually both an emitter and receiver of sound. A synchronized and well-tuned group performance relies on the latter. Insulation of the sense of hearing alienates the musicians. This has been done before. When Krzysztof Wodiczko and Szábolcs Esztényi in Warsaw in 1970 wrote a piece for radios entitled „Just Transistors” they instructed the participants to plug their ears with cotton wool. The act was political because the sound was similar to that of the radio jamming. In socialist countries the state was trying to control the information that would reach the citizens. Western radio broadcasts were made illegible by transmitting cheesy music on the same frequency. Radio jamming resulted in a strange, noisy mix that was hard to stand. „Just Transistors” was hence also a random mix of sounds meant only for the audience. However it is worth noting that the plugging of the ears worked as a visual cue and had little effect on the sound. Bumšteinas forms a very different situation where the sound separation matters.
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The score is composed out of stock photographs of people using headsets.
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The cycle works as a sequence of pieces that are self explanatory, and each of them adds an additional layer to the previous. We start with an exercise in the reading of the affect of facial expressions that indicate the reaction toward a sound that is being heard solely by the performer. The score is composed out of stock photographs of people using headsets. A set is almost a catalog of expressions that resemble those drawn by Charles le Brun. He used them for a painting course so that young artists could see and reproduce an affect. I was recently working with Barbara Kinga Majewska on her piece entitled „ Reading the Words of a Song in the Eyes”. She used a set of cards based on a test by Simon Baron-Cohen - a psychometric exercise in recognizing others’ feelings. Majewska adapted these to a set of pieces that indicate certain possible lyrics in a song. Is this a form of soundless music? JG Ballard in a famous short story „Soundsweep” dreamt of ultrasonic music - one that is highly condensed and uses frequencies above the hearing register. Although impossible to hear, these tunes induced the emotional state that would be the outcome of listening to the original version of the piece. Bumšteinas again disappoints expectations. The piece is self reflective and it uses ekphrasis - a written note that explains what the public would see that stands in for the work itself. A description of the emotional state fills the silence caused by the fact that the audience cannot hear the original signal. Yet it is not about the music itself, but about the effect it has, and how this sensation is turned into a description. In a sense this piece does not even need the listener. It is a closed circuit that does the job all on its own. The second piece continues the investigation but takes it to another, more radical place. Three duets are formed. In each of them, one performer wears earmuffs while the other makes quiet sounds with various materials. The first performer
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„My music is idealistic (and even utopian) in the sense that I try to create conflict-free microcosms, spaces of perfect coexistence of contrasts. It’s like trying to draw a perfect circle - doomed to failure by definition, but fascinating. Or a small psychiatric hospital with perfect peace, sterility and whiteness.”
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describes the sensations. The composer uses the description as an element that again ties the composition together. While writing this text it is hard for me to imagine the performance. I have confidence that indeed like Bumšteinas claims „some sort of telepathy will take place.” Even if it will be simply based on the mere movement of air, still it is something that amplifies the sensation of being distant. These two pieces are based on gestures and the way they are mediated. Their non-musical character shows how they are theatrical in a twisted/distorted/perplexing way. I already mentioned that they are self-sufficient. They do not need the audience to exist, because they are based on closed circuits. All parts are allocated to the performers and each step is a transmission of the former part into a different sphere. Bumšteinas has also been working with the language of theater. His investigation toward the origins of noise-making led to constructions of instruments based on the principles of ancient technology. One of them was a large machine responsible for the sound of wind. There is something striking in the discordance between what you see and hear. Sitting in a theater and looking at the stage causes a strange sensation. The tempo of movement of the machine is the only indicator of synchronization and unity between the sound and its source. The instruments were based on the images from such ancient sources like Agostino Ramelli’s Theatre of Machines. The title of that book sounds very contemporary and stages a basic substitution. All the hidden elements get elevated onto the stage and become the protagonists of their own mechanic dramas.
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Another piece grew out of this investigation: Epiloghi Six Ways of Saying Zangtumbtumb. The aforementioned machines were used to orchestrate a series of alternative epilogues of a mostly lost opera “Dafne” by Jacopo Peri. This work was based on staging of another transformation - that of a nymph into a laurel tree. Bumšteinas presented six possible versions of a finale. Each was based on a distinct emotion and scored for different sets of noise instruments. The composer used a motto that helped to work out the series of substitutions that took place here: „affects versus effects”. Naturally this is also connected with the transformation of the main character into an object. The libretto of the original opera also makes this aspect clear: A nymph, lost in tearful grief, departed this life, and she was later heard in grottoes, echoing as naked shadow and sound The opera was further deprived of its visual and verbal components. What is left is an attempt at the impossible a catalog of emotional states built out of foley sounds, voice, and other instruments. A plotless drama that might not even be designed for human ears. Once the transformation into a tree is complete, the opera should maybe conclude with a segment that is composed for the pleasures of flora - pieces of music not meant to be experienced by human beings, but rather, by plants themselves.
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The composer voices these aspirations in an interview:: „My music is idealistic (and even utopian) in the sense that I try to create conflict-free microcosms, spaces of perfect coexistence of contrasts. It’s like trying to draw a perfect circle - doomed to failure by definition, but fascinating. Or a small psychiatric hospital with perfect peace, sterility and whiteness.” I am not sure how the image of the psychiatric asylum got into that set of associations, but there is something in that juxtaposition that works for me. In many moments of Epiloghi I hear a strange liberation of selfobsessed sounds, which while not hearing each other, make room for a larger ensemble of voices. I assume that the same effect will eventually appear in these two opening pieces of the new cycle. The description opens up two possibilities that might be pursued simultaneously. The first would be the mutual entanglement of the described object and its verbal equivalent. The second is the potentiality of the description to detach itself from the form of the object and express the emotional states of the performer herself. This double fold movement is enabled by the sense of separation. We will see more clearly the meaning of this relation once we consider the two more musical concluding pieces. The first one was already foreshadowed. The performers sing a simple melody while their ears are plugged. They are to spin around for a while before performing. The disorientation and total aural isolation will definitely affect the tuning and synchronicity. These „errors” and detunings are the essence of the piece.
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These „errors” and detunings are the essence of the piece. The performers in the last piece use different metal objects of their own choice, but this time they play them synchronically joining in one by one, and stop playing simultaneously as coordinated by the time cue in the projection. The parts are well synchronized thanks to the use of timers. The cycle ends with a noisy piece that references previous compositions where Bumšteinas worked with gamelan. The last work expands one’s attention to the perception of the space by progressing from performer to performer. Each of the pieces is based on a transmission that relies on spatial relation. Something needs to pass through a sequence in order to be fulfilled. Naturally this is the basic description of how music works as a time-based medium. Yet it also draws on an important lesson coming from Robert Ashley that connects the revolution of 1960s modernism with the spatial location. A score becomes a map of interconnections and positions. It expands from linear into planar. Dissemination of parts in space becomes an important, even if implicit part of the score. Ultimately, however, this cycle focuses on communication. The second part with its particular understanding of telepathy makes this apparent. The deafness of the performers opens a yet uncharted territory that is filled with other types of exchanges of information.
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The deafness of the performers opens a yet uncharted territory that is filled with other types of exchanges of information.
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Text published for the performance of “Listening Stock” premiere on 09 12 2021, Arts Printing House/ Menų Spaustuvė, Vilnius Composer: Arturas Bumšteinas Performer: „Melos“ (Gabrielė Bilevičiūtė, Karolina Ramonė, Karolina Macytė, Paulina Simutytė, Nėja Vaitiekūnaitė, Marija Baniulytė, Magdalena Kozlovzkaja). Producer: Naujosios vokalinės muzikos kolektyvas „Melos“ Supported by: Lietuvos kultūros taryba Text editor – Vaiva Aglinskas Designer – Aurelija Slapšytė Photographers – Tomas Terekas, Lunatikai
Listening Stock (raw materials, reserves, capital, assortment, inventory, etc.). This associative title conceals a stage work for a vocal ensemble. It is a performance in the genre of “body music,” which consists of four pieces. Each piece explores a different way of non-hearing or some other conceptual, if not esoteric way of hearing. The choir performing them wears soundproof headphones. In “Listening Stock”, the performers come to metaphysical listening and attunement through a temporary pseudo-deafness.
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