keys+knives

12 tone chord long duration action
for
variable ensemble

03/14


the central reed organ, chord fixed with knives
 


christian jendreiko @arp odyssey, martin phelps @roland d50,
hans w. koch @OR/BIT electronic organ


martin phelps taking pitches from the central organ
all photos © matthias lahme
on a reed organ, a chord containing all 12 notes in various octaves is fixed with plastic knives.
above the keyboard are 12 small pages, each with the name of one pitch written on it.
the piece begins with starting the organ (for the premiere a hohner organa 354 was used).
the musicians then move individually up to the organ and select up to 4 pitches each from the chord,
removing the knives and taking the pages with the respective pitchnames with them.
they then start sounding these pitches on their instrument, variating timbres and octaves.
at the end, they return their pitches to the reed organ, fixing the pitch es in the octave it last sounded.
the piece is part of the series "the_o_theorem" based on ideas of the russian composer nikolai obukhov
about a "total harmony" containing all 12 pitches in one chord.

score

excerpt of a recording from a pre version @ bergerkirche duesseldorf
during "12 kosmische beispiele #9&10", march 29+30, 2014
christian jendreiko, martin phelps, hans w. koch (synthesizers and electronic organ)

recording of a performance by ensemble golden fur (james rushford, judith hamann, samuel dunscombe) @ tectonics, tel aviv, 2015-11-21

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