Peter Ablinger:
1 - 127
E-Gitarre und CD (2002)
127 kurze Teile, woraus eine Auswahl in sukzessiver Folge gespielt werden soll; Gesamtdauer: 80'
- e-guitar, CD; 127 short parts, from which a selection in successive order is played; total duration: 80'
Ink-sketch for "1-127": the repeated line and the sudden interruption of varying lenght and position in time
> see part 49 from the guitar score
> listen part 49, electric guitar (Seth Josel) and street noise
> CD with parts 33-127, guit.: Seth Josel
> parts "1-37" as film by Michel Lorand, guit.: Tom Powels (2022, D: 24:09)
Software for spectral analyses designed by Thomas Musil, IEM Graz
Original from the pre-score: the last three from 127 scales including the indication of the two framing notes between which the street noise - plus spectral analysis played by the guitar - would replace the scale
Scale, noise, scale; scale, noise, scale. Peter Ablinger's 33-127 for electric guitar and CD is a subset of the 2002 work 1-127, comprising the last 95 of the latter work's individually numbered segments, and from the listener's point of view it is so transparent that it is virtually opaque. This is not music in the accustomed sense. So what is it?
The piece itself could not be more straightforward. Again and again, ninety-five times in all, a scale descends, with gentle and unpredictable irregularities of both rhythm and pitch, from the top of the electric guitar's range to the bottom. The sound of the instrument is clean, clear, and precise. And then, at some point in each of these tranquil, neutral scales-all but one of them, anyway-its progress is interrupted by a cacophony of recorded street noise, which the guitar, now louder and rougher in tone, attempts flailingly to accompany. A moment of this, or a few seconds; then the scale resumes as if nothing has happened. It reaches the bottom of the instrument, the track readout on the CD player clicks upward on its way to 95, and we begin again. But why these scales, and why this noise?
Here is the full text:
"Like the Clear Blue Sky": Peter Ablinger's 33-127 by Evan Johnson
from: liner notes for the CD "33-127"
see also: "Window Piece", Seeing and Hearing the Music of Peter Ablinger
2010 by G. Douglas Barrett, as download-document: pdf (52 KB)
Skizze 1997: immer gleich / immer kurz / immer Rausch-Quadrat / zur - diatonischen - Linie / Rauschquadrat / ist immer Schichtung / aus Berlin-lärm / 7.11.97
for score and performance CD contact the publisher:
ZEITVERTRIEB WIEN BERLIN
Bryan Eubanks, Gotzkowskystr. 15, D-10555 Berlin,
T: +49 / 176 / 47 39 29 97, zeitvertrieb@proton.me
A Note on Programming Series
field recordings:
(other pieces including/consisting of field recordings)
Quadraturen IV ("Selfportrait with Berlin"), for ensemble and Berlin field recordings
Quadraturen I ("Stadtportrait Graz")
Hotel Deutsches Haus
Das Buch der Gesänge / The Book of Songs
Der Gesang, 1. Akt der Stadtoper Graz (dt.)
The Singing, 1st Act of the Cityopera Graz (engl.)
the scale:
Weiss/weisslich 1
Grisailles
IEAOV
Scales