different forms of phosphorus — Karola Obermüller
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Different Forms of Phosphorus — Karola Obermüller
Amazing Moments in Timbre | Timbre and Orchestration Writings
by Lindsey Reymore
Published:November 9th, 2020 | How to cite
Music for English horn alone
Part I
Jacqueline Leclair’s album Music for English Horn Alone, released in October 2020, represents a landmark for the versatile—but often underestimated—English horn. In particular, the album showcases the colorful timbral palette of the instrument through both traditional modes of playing and extended techniques. This is the first part of two blogs addressing pieces on Leclair’s new album: different forms of phosphorus by Karola Obermüller and Música invisible by Cecilia Arditto. In this blog post, after introducing Leclair’s album, I explore how in different forms of phosphorus, four timbral motives drive the musical narrative of coalescence and structure my experience of the organization of the piece.
What do you think of when you think of the timbre of the English horn? Those who are familiar with this gem of a musical instrument might associate it with any of its more famous orchestral solos, such as the opening of the second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony or Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture. Rich, gorgeous, plangent, woeful, singing, soulful, and melancholy, the English horn most often takes the spotlight during slow, mournful melodies. (For those not familiar with the English horn: it is a bigger and lower version of the oboe, resulting in a unique timbre.)
Now, don’t get me wrong—I love to revel in a good English horn lament. But because the English horn has been typecast for centuries, few understand its truly amazing expressive flexibility. This isn’t to say that some composers haven’t explored its possibilities, or that it hasn’t found itself in atypical contexts (“Wishful, Sinful” by The Doors, for example), but rather to emphasize that traditional treatment of the English horn has overlooked its timbral multidimensionality.
Jacqueline Leclair’s new album release, Music for English Horn Alone, challenges this limiting stereotype: in her own words, she is “throwing down the gauntlet.” The album includes plenty of beautiful moments that capitalize on the gorgeous tone that the English horn is justifiably famous for, but the English horn doesn’t just sing in this album: it dances, prances, grooves, scurries, sighs, frets, ruminates, wails, screams, screeches, argues, and more. The diverse repertoire covered in what may be the first solo album for unaccompanied English horn showcases the instrument’s incredible versatility, including—you guessed it—its versatility of timbre.
Several of the compositions explore the color palette of the English horn using almost entirely traditional playing techniques—for example, juxtaposing musical ideas in the narrower, more energetic, and brighter high register with the grainier, richer, and more chocolate-y lower register. These and similar timbral contrasts are sometimes used as structuring elements in the music. Other compositions explore the sonic universe of “extended” techniques, where the musician produces sounds in non-traditional ways, such as clicking keys, flutter-tonguing, or speaking into the horn without a reed. In this sense, Leclair’s entire album marks an “Amazing Moment in Timbre.” For the remainder of this blog, we will take a closer look and listen to Obermüller’s piece, different forms of phosphorous.
Motives
Motives are very brief musical ideas that composers often use to create structure for listeners. Obermüller’s genius in different forms of phosphorus comes in part from her elegant mastery of motivic narrative. The motives in this piece are primarily timbral; they have signature melodic and rhythmic content, certainly, but their distinct characters emerge from their timbral properties—some of which are results of variation in pitch, articulation, and duration. In my analysis of this work, I identify four principal motives, which begin as separate entities but coalesce throughout the piece, culminating in a climactic integrated stream of multiphonics that spirals out into the ether.
The first section of different forms of phosphorus is dominated by the pedal motive, a single low, held pitch that provides a stage for timbral exploration through manipulation of the speed and width of vibrato and of the pitch-timbre complex on a microtonal level.
This section also includes the occasional pop, a short, clean note that functions as punctuation. The pop idea later reveals itself as a special variety of the drip-drop motive, characterized by crisp articulations and short durations. (Note that the identities I’ve given these motives, and their names—pedal, drip-drop, etc.—don’t necessarily reflect how the composer conceived of the piece but rather describe how my own understanding of the perceptual organization of the piece has emerged through listening.)
The most melodic motive is introduced early on (around 1:40) but doesn’t really come into its own until the second half of the piece. I’ve come to call this idea the whale motive, since its lonely sound, especially paired with the reverb of the recording mix, reminds me of a whale song. I hear two versions of the whale motive: the keening whale and the plangent whale, which are primarily differentiated by the timbral differences as a function of tessitura: The keening whale sound is quite high and pleading, narrower and more compact, even piercing at times, while the plangent whale, capitalizing on a lower portion of the English horn’s register, provides more resonance and richness.
The multiphonic motive provides the piece with texture. My name for the motive isn’t very creative here—it literally refers to the type of sound produced by the extended technique called a “multiphonic.” On wind instruments that usually only play one note at a time, unusual combinations of fingerings can produce sounds that contain several discriminable pitches. However, the timbres of these sounds are quite different from the instrument’s usual sound: they’re often rough, gritty, or harsh and almost always contain microtones. In this piece, they provide a critical contrast in tone color to the other timbral ideas.
Spectrograms provide a way of visualizing timbres. Time is notated on the x-axis, while the vertical dimension of the graph indicates frequency. The intensity of the color shows where the energy of the sound is concentrated. Below are visualizations and sound clips for each of the four motives I’ve described.
Sample spectrograms of the four motives. (click on the thumbnails to see the spectrogram of each motive)
The form of the piece is slippery: the presentation of musical materials is evolutionary, morphing, coalescing. Often, the end of one musical idea turns out to be the beginning of another. Sometimes one motive will take on some of the characteristics of a different motive. As a result, there are likely many interesting ways of experiencing the narrative of the piece. To conclude this post, I’ll share with you how I hear the organization of the piece, based on the motives I’ve described above. You can see an overview in a diagram at the end of the blog.
Form
The first three minutes of the piece are sonically rooted in the pedal motive. In this section the pops serve as punctuation, and as the pedal motive begins its gradual evolution, we are also introduced to both the whale and multiphonic ideas, but we always return to the pedal. For the next minute and a half, the multiphonic texture dominates—we don’t lose the pops or the occasional whale keen, but the main action of this section takes place through the exploration of multiphonics, which are often sounded as tremolos or trills. The variation of speeds among the tremolos sets the pacing.
At around 4:20 in the piece, the first attempt at integration of the motives occurs, but it is limited by temporality—one motive happening after another—and ultimately unsuccessful. The series of phrases which unfurl from here begin with pedals, just like in the beginning of the piece. Yet each pedal statement attempts a different evolution; for example, the first series of iterations move from pedal to multiphonic to drip drop within each phrase. Beginning around 5:50, the integration attempt is overtaken by the whale song. While the whale keens have been present throughout, the motive has not yet been given the opportunity to sing until now, where keening whale becomes plangent whale. The pops and drips continue to punctuate this section, and the multiphonics are also woven into the song.
An interpretation of the musical form of different forms of phosphorus, based on the timbral-motivic content. The mark in the final section indicates the location of the final pedal, which sends the music off into the ether.
A series of three clear pops, about seven and a half minutes in, signals the beginning of the end. The first tactic is to weave together the drip-drop and the multiphonic ideas, which are juxtaposed more and more rapidly, like spinning dancers gaining momentum. Just after 8:20, the final integration begins to happen, first in a series of waves that ebb and flow. While a sense of temporal alternation between motives is still present in the earlier waves—specifically, between the multiphonic and drip-drop motives—it becomes more and more evident that unity must be achieved timbrally, rather than melodically, or temporally. The sound that emerges begins to take on the multiphonic color with the drip-drop articulation and pacing, plus the pitch-bending characteristic of the whale song and the continuity of the pedal. Each wave pulls these elements together more and more. Then, the original pedal returns, clear and resonant, just for a few seconds, but with a marked determination. The final wave—and the complete integration—begins. Upon successfully gaining momentum, the newly formed motivic complex spirals off into the distance, leaving the impression that these processes—and this momentum—endures beyond our listening.
Links:
Purchase the album from New Focus Recordings
Listen to the full album here on Bandcamp:
For more English horn repertoire, visit the Timbre and Orchestration Resource’s Spotify Channel