I give my compositions very few evocative titles. They often take the form of a brief description of the set-up, as if it were self-sufficient. No metaphorical images or distant associations, just an accumulation of juxtaposed terms... And always the word “music” in front of this cold description. I wish I'd had such a pragmatic idea, but I have to give credit where credit is due, and in this case to Alvin Lucier, a major figure in experimental music who died in 2021. 

 

I never met Alvin Lucier, nor did I have the chance to see him perform. I rediscovered his work in greater detail after many discussions with Alexandre Babel, reading Lucier's writings (“Musique 109” or "Reflections"), and Mathieu Saladin's excellent book (“Le même et le différent”). I admire his work, his ability to take on everything (from orchestral pieces to solos, performances and installations) and his intelligence in making an idea “simple” while at the same time giving birth to infinitely rich, complex music. In addition to these many objective qualities, I loved how his modesty prevailed, and his enthusiasm when talking about other people's music.

 

Alvin Lucier composed over thirty works combining acoustic instruments and sinusoidal sounds: trombone, horn, piano, violin, cello, double bass, clarinet, accordion, voice, koto and even timpani. In Still Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbola (1973), he tried his hand at composing for twelve different instruments, including the vibraphone. Playing on the interplay between acoustics and sinusoidal sound, Lucier lets us hear these acoustic beats playing on the perception of different pulsations and speeds. I always wonder what's so captivating about listening to them. Perhaps it's that listening to them plunges us into the depths of ourselves, a forced introspection where Pauline Oliveros' concept of deep listening takes on its full meaning, where the slightest variation perceived is an upheaval for the listener. There's also that strange experience, that pleasure of illogic, where the addition of two frequencies played at the same time doesn't produce a chord or harmony, but a rhythm. A curious and fascinating moment of alchemy, when we leave the musical world for a physical, acoustic one.

 

Music for Vibraphone & Sine tones explores this theme. The piece develops around the A (the A in “Alvin” that runs through the piece from start to finish), playing on the resemblance between sinusoidal sounds and the sound of a bow on a vibraphone. A blurring of perception between electronics and acoustics, a bubbling magma of sound, where multiple strata and harmonics accumulate. The piece ends with a typically “Feldmanian” pattern (one day there will surely be a piece or even several subtitled “For Morton”), a chromatic and rhythmic motif tirelessly repeated, just enough time to think of Alvin one last time, letting all those la/A disappear one by one.