Background:

Of all the commissioned works (by various composers) included in my project, this specific work by Buene triggered in me artistic and ethical perspectives pointing into different directions. In order to explain some of the background for these though processes, I include this section:

At the conservatory in Tokyo, I simply practiced large amounts of classical standard piano works, from Barock to Bartok, and it was within this frame one would find the mandatory repertoire for performing exams at the end of each semester, for competitions and so on. Obviously, I loved this repertoire, and I enjoyed performing it.

I woke up at 4 or 5 a.m., worked part-time during the morning, then went to school, and worked part-time after school. The money was spent on lots of concerts performed by artists from abroad such as Evgeny Kissin, Kristian Zimmermann, Valery Gergiev, etc., and all this helped to develope my burning passion for music.

My master at the Barratt Due music institute in Norway consisted of similar piano repertoire.

However, already since I was in Tokyo, I gradually became conscious about various barriers.

For example, in Tokyo, when I was participating at competitions/exams, I received comments about the general volume, some wrong notes, and they always asked about my age, and who’s my teacher.

When I came to Norway, and participated at some European competitions or master classes, then, on the contrary, me and other Japanese were often told more or less directly that "Japanese only have the technique", “no originality”, and I remember one jury member even told a girl that "Japanese all play the same. You’re like grains of rice."

At this time, I was loosing interest in what reminded me of “racehorsing”. Through people such as Håkon Austbø, I got acquainted with f.ex. Messiaen's colorful music, and I believe I developed a deeper interest for timbre. In my ear and in my own visualisation, music that was previously monochrome, started to appear in many colors. 

SCHUBERT:

I have performed Schubert's Winterreise and Die Schöne Müllerin (though not the complete cycles), and I’m deeply fascinated with both the music and the world view of the text. I’ve always felt that Schubert's music is something one should wait to play until one gets more mature/older, which in fact is ironic, as Schubert composed them at a young age, and died before reaching 31. So, although I knew Schubert's three late sonatas, the works quoted in this work by Buene, I had never played them.

Through the collaboration with Buene this time, though the quoted parts are less than one bar, I could touch upon Schubert's late sonata. At the workshop with Buene; the moment I played the first note of these less-than-a-bar short quotes, I noticed that I intuitively recognized it as "the sound of Schubert",  and it made me feel nostalgic. I believe this strong attachment both shows that Schubert is a great composer, but also that I’ve grown up in musical world of Western classics.

There is a very melodic and nostalgic part (the 2nd mv)                  in Three Studies using no microtones at all. This is the part sounding most familiar to our ears, and it was immediately easier to “shape” it. But later, when I studied this work and thought about the meaning of microtonality in this music, this part became a metaphor for the apple of Adam and Eve. The 12-tone equal temperament is the most accessible to us, and sounds comfortable in our ears. However, because we ate it (got to know about this), we can no longer return to the ancient scale. (Ref:Ladakh?) In the piece, this part is followed by a long heavy section that reminds of a slow  march, as a symbol of something that never stops: There is no turning back.

After this, the music turns into moments "nothingness" before the final movement leads the listener into an another dimension. I see Schubert's Winterreise in this final movement. Some interpret Winterreise as the “post-Müllerin dimension”: After the suicide of the main character's death (due to his lost love) in Die Schöne Müllerin, Winterreise represents a world after everything is over and gone.

In my opinion, Three Studies for Microtonal Piano is a strong work, that, in spite of its very neutral title, sparks the imagination, not just because of certain referances to Schubert’s last piano sonatas, but also through how the composer treats and includes the microtones, which in fact are quite few. Through this work by Buene, microtonal music (which is considered modern and novel in the history of piano music, but was actually forgotten by the appearance and mass production of the modern piano) and Schubert (which I myself had "forgot" about) and Buenes colorful sounds were contrasting elements that intertwined and spoke to me with thoughts and vision.

This experience made a strong impression, and it took me a step into the further unknown territory of the subsequent production of the short animation film.

RECORDING:

When making the new recording in August 2020, I noticed that I was, due to all the work with the detailed “list of associations” and the collaboration with Nedrelid, much more personally attached to the work, and probably therefore also had a much clearer impression of the timbres and phrases I wanted to perform. I believe I then could express the music more freely and convincingly than when I had premiered the work.

MINORITY:

Though my starting point of the project was very technical/practical, last year my focus however shifted slightly, now focusing more on the concept of minority and some of its implications.

At the same concert as Buene’s WP,  I had the opportunity to play a piece by Bjørn Erik Haugen inspired by a documentary on Helen Keller, and through this project, I started questioning what "ordinary" means,  and began reflecting on my own origin and situation.

“Musical minority”: I myself am a non-western classically trained pianist playing western contemporary music on the microtonal piano.

Though there has mainly been a positive, engaging force throughout the project, I also have experienced negative barriers and resistance due to the "unusuality" . (F.ex. LAB experience).

When I have been in a position to judge something/someone, in a committee or sim.,  I’ve witnessed applicants not getting through the first round due to cultural differences, and it became clearer to me what I was wondering about -  "minority”. I believe I understand why I unconsciously focused on microtonal music, which is a minority for the piano.

Focusing on this perspective, obviously leads into to minefields of ethics, and though I will not be able to go in depth into this matter in my research project, I still want to share these thoughts since I find it interesting to view my motivation and project from this angle as well.

The standardized way of sharing research is limiting. It is necessary to have a common language, and the research should be shared, and also refer to others and other research.
And so, a simple but difficult question arises in my mind, as our research model is a result of Western culture, and researchers almost only refer to Western literature, at least within the field of artistic research: What happens to the “minorities” – f.ex the research being written in Japan in Japanese (or other languages), without the funding to let it be translated, etc.?

One might find a parallel hierarchy in music, where Western music culture and especially it’s tuning system (12tone equal temperament – 12TET) has colonized almost the entire planet. Almost all music (old folk songs, instruments etc) has been adjusted to the 12TET. Only some few individuals or obscure groups of “nerds” and ideologists will continue to maintain or further develop the their “minority tunings”. Of course, no one thinks this makes the non-western music less valuable. But whenever the minorities are to be researched, they must necessarily be compared with a standard, again the Western standard, in order to articulate how extraordinary they are.

I am a Japanese artistic research fellow within a Western system that I deeply admire, and try to learn from. At the same time, I would very much like to raise some awareness both to myself and others about this issue – both about the non-Western and the non-standardized – the minority – through my project.

Three Studies for microtonal piano (2019)

Here you see examples of how Buene uses this material:

We had several workshops trying out both pedaling and various degrees of microtonal pitch deviation within a string course. In the bass range, the number of strings for a certain key varies on different piano models, so the lowest key with a non-unison string course scordatura, C#3, will have either 2 or 3 strings. We decided to specify an alternative for both these cases in the performance notes. The role of the two non-unison keys was, according to Buene, to sound like an old, out-of-tune piano, rather than creating a delicate timbre. Therefore, we ended up having relatively large pitch deviations (quartertone and 1/6-tone).

Buene uses una corda in combination with non-unison string course scordatura (different tuning within a string course), making it possible to achieve both a clean sound (the 1 or 2 string(s) to the right sounding in unison) and a “dirty” sound (all strings sounding) - on the same key. However, because of a misunderstanding, Buene thought that “una corda” meant that only one string would be sounding, so some adjustments to the pitch deviation had to be made after the premier to get it right. For the string course where he had asked for 3 different pitches, as he desired both a micro-cluster (3 differently tuned strings) and a completely clean pitch on the same key, we decided to de-tune only 1 of the 3 strings, and not 2.

In Buene’s 3^rd study, Schubert’s dotted C# octave arpeggio rhythm from D.960, has become a heterophonic texture of large intervals soon spreading across the entire keyboard, forming a beautiful soundscape around an accentuated yet very slow melody coming from the middle range.

All 3 studies have several “spontaneous” accentuated chords in the higher range, usually including at least one microtone. In general, Buene’s microtones are supposed to sound out-of-tune.

VISUALIZATION:

Ever since the world premier of Three Studies for Microtonal Piano, I had imagined that some kind of visualization of this solo work could become very interesting.

As the Covid-19 situation resulted in a lot of cancellations and postponements, I decided to set aside some time to actually make it happen.

In August 2020, I recorded the work on the label of Lawo, and together with filmmaker and animator Audun Nedrelid, we started working on what would become a mix of a short movie and a contemporary music video.

We believed that an animated short film would be a good format for visualizing the associations, partly because it would give us an artistic freedom that would be much easier to realize with a low budget. We hope that the beauty vs brutality of the work, will create an exciting emotional journey also for an audience unaccustomed to contemporary music.

Nedrelid is inspired by the expressivity of Munch, where the artist not just scrapes the paint off, but scrapes into the canvas itself.

We are curious to see if an animated music video could be a way to present contemporary music to a broader audience. It will be published at several sites online (including youtube), and we also believe that it could be presented at f.ex short film festivals. The film will be released/published early Autumn 2021.

In 2018, I asked Buene to write a new work for the microtonal piano, focusing on ‘twisting’ one or more classical solo piano works’. In 2019, I premiered the work Three Studies for Microtonal Piano, which has several references to Schuberts last piano sonatas.

Here are the extracts used in Buene’s work, from the 2nd movements of Schubert’s Piano Sonatas D.958, D.959 and D.960.

It was Buenes idea to use the same 4 de-tuned pitches as in Griseys Vortex Temporum, in addition to two keys with non-unison string course scordatura (where the strings within one string course are differently tuned).

A string course includes all the strings that sound when playing pressing 1 key on the piano. In the very low range there is only one string per key, then 2 strings, but in the upper 2/3 of the keyboard, all keys have string courses with 3 strings.

Method regarding the music video version:

Before making any film, I first intuitively wrote down the visions that I imagined in the different short sections of the work. I wrote my own chronological list of rather spontaneous associations – with events/atmospheres in the work that I imagine could be treated visually, in a mimetic/commenting or contrasting relation to the music.

All notes were in my mother tongue, Japanese – I realized it was easier to both reflect on and express myself more intuitively by doing so. I asked Nedrelid to create a storyboard based on the rather spontaneous associations I go through when performing the work. Quite soon, I thought it seemed to be successful as a visual music video because the general flow of the story had already been completed.

After a while, I noticed that several of my associations probably had been colored by my increasing awareness the last year of the general conflict of majority vs minority – the microtone being one of many metaphors for minority. These ideas now became the driving force of the “plot” in our little film.

However, as I read my “list of associations” over and over, and watched the film several times, I thought something important was missing. In the autumn 2020, we all realized that my free imagination didn’t really take dramaturgy into account, and even though we always imagined some surrealism, we had reached a dead end: There were too many elements that couldn’t be united, and that became more confusing and disturbing, so we ended up inviting the theatre director Eliot Moleba, to guide us back on track. This proved to be very helpful, and he managed to structure the minority concept in a much more coherent way.

The original list of associations is however still influencing the ending result, as it creates and colors events on a more detailed level, and it will later be interesting to compare these first spontaneous ideas to the finished work.

When discussing the minority concept with director Moleba, he asked me to make a list of the “obstacles for microtonality”, as this could offer him some parameters to work on when structuring the plot. Though the list I sent him, might seem simple and banal, I choose to show it as this turned out to be an important step forward for our project:

• Most people are not used to it, and even don’t get a chance to experience it and know about it. (Today, almost everywhere)
• The minority is laughed at (regarded as “dirty”, “out of tune!”), even before it’s really listened to. (Today, almost everywhere)
• It is not included in mass production. (Mass production of pianos (and also most other instruments) in Europe, the States, ever since the 19th century…and later also in Japan, Korea, China.)
• “Standardization is safe” (Not time/space specific, I suppose, but this interestingly very much describing the time we’re living in, too. Standardization is, I suppose, also a result of the Industrial revolution)
• The majority ignoring sensitivity/nuances. (Not time/space specific, I suppose)
• Colonialism – powerful countries rule. In music, ancient and non-western scales have been squeezed out, forgotten, or made insignificant. (Europeans in the 19th century brought their tuning system to cultures in f.ex East-Asia. Music conservatories (for western classical music) appeared in many cities. Of course, this is not a bad thing in itself, but it started to dominate almost all music genres. But this in fact also happened to European folk music, not least in f.ex. Norway.

In the 1^st study, Buene has treated the barcarolle-like rhythm (3/8) from D.959 in a rather fragmented and obscured manner. Sometimes, the mechanical sound of sudden pedal release contributes to keep the broken barcarolle moving on. One senses the F#minor tonality, and Buene has kept the bass, though it’s “stuck” with its first pitches (esp. F# and E#).

D.960

D.959

Composed by: 
    Eivind Buene
Premier:
    At the «Schubert meets Helen Keller» concert
    30th of October 2019
    Levinsalen, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo

The tuning:

It is not very clear how Buene uses the material from D.958 in his  2^nd study, but in the opening he seems to be playing with the respectively falling and rising perfect of the bass in Schubert. In addition, there is a play with Schubert’s major/minor alternation. This is also found in the Buene’s “slow-motion march” starting from bar 7.

Another issue was the use of the una corda pedal (left pedal). When depressed, the una corda pedal makes the hammers hit one string less (within every string course) than when it is released (normal position). The whole keyboard and all the hammers move a bit to the right, in order to slightly reduce the volume, as the leftmost strings then will not sound. 

D.958

D.958, 2nd mov., bar 12

D.959, 2nd mov., bar 1-2

D.960, 2nd mov., bar 1

EIVIND BUENE:

Some years ago, when I was working at a music high school in Oslo, Eivind Buene once visited the school to give a lecture to the students where he talked about his compositional motivation, how he composes and so on. Then I got to know his works Blue Mountain (2014) and Schubert Lounge, where both works are inspired by existing works; respectively by Gustav Mahler and by Franz Schubert.

Listening to Buene's works and himself demonstrating music historical references/quotes as an origin for several of his compositions, and the following compositional processes, was for me yet another eye-opener. It made me view and appreciate classical music in ways that were new to me. Furthermore, all this got intertwined, through Buene's sound world, with my continuously growing interest in contemporary music and its richness in timbre.

Maybe, I thought, this was similar to my first listening experience of Grisey's Vortex Temporum: Though not very obvious, Grisey’s intertwines material derived from a few extracts of Ravel with his own timbre-oriented structures and language.

A comment on the choice of microtonal pitches in Buenes work:

Gerard Grisey spent years finding the ideal tuning for his work Vortex Temporum. Probably because I suggested the composers in the project to look for practical solutions concerning tuning, in fact several of the composers – not only Buene, chose to use the Vortex tuning.

Still, I’m questioning the choice of microtonal pitches in these works:

Did they skip some of the inventive listening process that Grisey so thoroughly went through, simply for the benefit of more practical concert programming?

I am also questioning the postmodern (and later) tradition  - however historically necessary it may have been, or still may be - of borrowing material that I suspect many composers of lacking any deep experience with, and thus not letting the work reach it’s full potential. As a performer, I sometimes, rather unconscously, wonder whether develoing an “own” material was too time-consuming or not for the composer…

An anecdote:

Student reactions to different ways of including microtonality

In November 2019, I had a so-called LAB lecture for master students at NMH. They were all classically trained musicians, and none of them were pianists. Me and pianist Ellen Ugelvik played extracts from several composers’ pieces and some recordings from the concerts including Buene’s Three Studies for Microtonal Piano, and some of the string players reacted interestingly: They couldn’t stand listening to the de-tuned piano of Buene without thinking about making mistakes – as if unwillingly playing out of tune. 

We then performed the work by Jonas Skaarud that uses 8 e-bows laying on the strings of the 2 pianos, and nothing else (no keys in use). Now, none of the 13 master students reacted to the fact that the piano was microtonal, even though there were 15 quarter tones in use in my piano part!

While a piano sound has an extremely clear attack with a rather complex harmonic spectrum, the ebow makes a sound that reminds of an electronic sine tone, without any clear attack at all, and with very few overtones, but could this alone be the reason why they suddenly accepted the microtones?

Eivind Buene (1973- ):

Studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music and has been a freelance composer living and working in Oslo, writing for a wide array of ensembles and orchestras since 2000. Has recieved commissions from a.o. Ensemble Intercontemporain, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Fondation Royaumont and a variety of Scandinavian orchestras and ensembles and has been performed performed at prestigous venues like Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonie and Carnegie Hall, and festivals such as Gaudeamus, Nordic Music Days, Music Biennale Zagreb, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Ultima. Apart from writing music for soloists, ensembles and orchestras, he frequently engages in collaborations with improvising musicians, developing music in the cross-section between classical notation and improvisation. Is also known as a successful author in Norway.

Note from the rehearsals and concert.:

the two de-tuned notes (piano part):

Standing Stones Bar 29-32.:

keys used in this work:

Version for Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, May 2018

for symphonic hall 

with orchestra and electronics

Durata: 19'

Standing Stones