Monsters I Love: On Multivocal Arts

Alex Nowitz

Proposing a ‘multivocal practice’ in the vocal arts, this exposition (documented artistic research project) embodies an inclusive approach to four core categories for the contemporary performance voice: the singing, speaking, extended and disembodied voice. The culmination of a four-year PhD project in Artistic Practices (Performative and Mediated Practices, with specialisations in choreography/film and media/opera /performing arts), it documents artistic research sub-projects through the presentation of multimedia material, interweaving performance recordings with reflective and contextualising texts. Multivocality addresses various models of virtuosity, all of which are informed by a multi-faceted artistic knowledge, whether experimental or experiential, technical or technological, improvisational or compositional. Contemporary vocal performance practices are loaded by questions pertaining to detecting and solving technical issues that span the vocal domains. Through a range of artistic practices—vocal, oral, bodily and technology-related—the research project unfolds what is conceived as a bountiful ‘vocal imaginary’. When voice and body meet technology-related practices that aim at the expansion of the vocal realm by using custom and gesture-controlled live electronics, a performance æsthetics of the in-between emerges. This is explored via the ‘strophonion’, formerly built at STEIM in Amsterdam and, during the course of the PhD, further developed by Berlin-based software programmer Sukandar Kartadinata who created an intricate configuration on the basis of the audio processing application Max/MSP. Through the formulation and performance of ‘The Manifesto for the Multivocal Voice’—a ‘discursive solo performance act’ that aims to provide insights into principles and premises, and to develop the discourse on the politics of today’s performance voice—the exposition attempts to establish a potential theoretical and philosophical grounding for multivocality. Its second major concern relates to the poetics of the voice, investigating the thresholds of highly individualised vocal practices by asking: what are the boundaries of the contemporary performance voice? The exposition (on the Research Catalogue) comprises video and audio documentation of public live performances, lectures and artists’ talks as well as studio productions and rehearsals. The user is invited to study scores and various texts, such as poems, extended programme notes, translations, performance instructions, comments and other reflections. The collection of essays and articles that guide the user through the edifice of ideas that the artistic research project has unveiled remains central to the endeavour.

Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan

[What I'm doing, is poorly done]

Re-composing interpreting a composition for the use of five vocal performers and strophonion: Detecting intricacies in the practice of live sampling other voices

Biographical note related to the premiere of the composition Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan in 2006 at the Theatre Osnabrück:

The composition Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan is part of the overall composition Drei Psalmen partly premiered by the vocal quartet from the Theatre Osnabrück in 2006, on the occasion of the premiere of Die Bestamnnoper [The bestman's opera] by Alex Nowitz (composition) and Ralph Hammerthaler (text), composed for 14 solo singers, female and male choir, orchestra, theremin, and percussion instruments, piano, toy piano and harmonium. The opera, of historico-political nature and by means of æsthetics of the grotesque, deals with real facts, in general, and, in particular, with the biography of Nazi criminal and mass murderer Alois Brunner who was never brought to court, but instead was protected by the Assad regime in Damascus Syria. The antagonist character in the opera is based on the real figure of French lawyer Serge Klarsfeld who lost his father at the age of eight because of Brunner's over-ambitious and relentless actions to find Jews in Nice to put them onto the death trains to Auschwitz. Mr. Klarsfeld visited the premiere on 8 April 2006 at the Theatre Osnabrück.

The Score

Thomas Bernhard is the author of the poem Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan being part of the collection Neun Psalmen [Nine psalms]. In 2001 I composed the music for four male voices as part of the overall composition Drei Psalmen. With regard to the artistic research project Extending Voices, Sampling the Other, together with the Auditivvokal Dresden, I adapted the composition Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan to be used as basis for a re-composition interpretation.

Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan,

was ich singe, ist schlecht gesungen,

darum hast Du ein Recht

auf meine Hände

und auf meine Stimme.

Ich werde arbeiten nach meinen Kräften.

Ich verspreche Dir die Ernte.

Ich werde singen den Gesang der untergegangenen Völker.

Ich werde mein Volk singen.

Ich werde lieben.

Auch die Verbrecher!

Mit den Verbrechern und mit den Unbeschützten

werde ich eine neue Heimat gründen —

Trotzdem ist, was ich tue, schlecht getan,

was ich singe, schlecht gesungen.

Darum hast du ein Recht

auf meine Hände

und auf meine Stimme.

The Intrepretation by Auditivvokal Dresden

_____________________

Psalm 'III' from the 'Neun Psalmen' [Nine psalms], as part of the cycle 'Die Nacht, die durch mein Herz stößt' [The night which pierces through my heart], in

Thomas Bernhard, Gesammelte Gedichte, ed. by Volker Bohn (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1996), p.74-75.

What I'm doing, is poorly done,

what I'm singing, is poorly sung,

that's why you are entitled

to my hands

and my voice.

I will work to the best of my ability

I promise you the harvest.

I will sing the song of the extinct peoples.

I will sing my people.

I will love.

The criminals too!

With the criminals and with the unprotected ones

I will found a new homeland —

In spite of that, what I'm doing, is poorly done,

what I'm singing, is poorly sung.

That's why you are entitled

to my hands

and to my voice.

(my translation)

The Re-Composition Interpretation for Strophonion and Five Vocal Performers

The preparation period for this presentation as documented bespoke the intricacies that are involved in the practice of live sampling other voices. During the testing period it turned out that it is quite difficult to find a good and balanced volume level to record the ensemble in order to further develop and work with this material in a satisfying way. Since the volume level is, to a high degree, depending on the quality of the microphone, the distance of the voice to the microphone, the dynamic range and intensity as applied by the performer, it was almost impossible to acquire sound material good enough to use and play with in conjunction with the ensemble. For the actual task was to re-compose the piece Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan by means of improvisation applied by both me playing the strophonion and the ensemble creating a version of Was ich tue, ist schlecht getan based on the music as written for each singer, but liberated from the coordination in terms of rhythm and time structure. Finally, I decided to step back from the idea of live sampling the whole ensemble and thus gave pre-recorded material priority. This, on the other hand, was an easy task since I already prepared a number of sequences from the audio recording of the straight-forward interpretation of the piece as previously done in July 2016. This way I was able to make sure that I stay coherent with regard to the materiality as given by the initial composition.

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