Ordinary Music Vol.3

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS136, Lisbon 2008

Music as non-representational art: ordinary music

Nikolaus Gerszewski has been writing music as an autodidact since 2003. In 2007, he developed an individual form of notation for his “Ordinary Music”. Formerly, he had worked as a visual artist and art critic. His interest was focussed on different kinds of so-called “abstract”, “concrete” or “non-representational” painting: informal, constructivism, abstract expressionism, radical painting, minimal art, lyrical abstraction, action painting and optical art. It was this kind of art that had a decisive influence on New York contemporary music of the 50s and 60s. Similar to New York School music, “Ordinary Music” can be described as a continuation of abstract visual thinking by means of sound, a kind of “sound painting”: music appearing in terms of “sound spaces”, “sound surfaces”, “sound layers” or “sound objects”. This change in musical comprehension - from an art form developed within time to one unfolded within space - required its equivalent in terms of notation. The score of “Ordinary Music Vol.3” visualizes a possible simultaneity of sound events, to be combined (put in sequence, layered, intermingled) in real time by the players: an ad-hoc composition with predetermined material. The material: slides, tremoli, harmonics, held tones, patterns, distortions, beating waves or noises (white noise, knocking, whistling etc.) noted in diagrams - partly as sound descriptions, partly as technical instructions - can be performed by musical laymen just as well as by professional musicians. In the instructions it says: “It might take some rehearsal to acquire the perceptiveness it takes, but in principal there are no preconditions regarding musical education”. Nikolaus Gerszewski has studied and performed scores by Cage (Four6), Cardew (Treatise) and Christian Wolff (Edges, Prose Collection). The decisive impulse, however, came from an entirely different direction: “Since October 2007, I have been visiting a Yoga class. The experience of how to change the body perception by breathing, muscle straining and ankle stretching brought me the idea of creating music that consists in the most basic exercises: for the fingers, the wrist, the shoulder, the ear, the breath, the concentration or the coordination.” For the listener, “Ordinary Music” becomes accessible through a mental tracing of the sound surface. Just like the spectator of a De Kooning painting could recall the creative act by tracing the brush strokes. “Ordinary Music” wants to make the composition process audible. Its performance is understood as a process of collective searching. And the music unfolds as if by coincidence. The premiere of “Ordinary Music Vol.3” in Lisbon took place without any advance rehearsal; there was only a short discussion right before the concert.

Karl Messer

1. For String Trio & Double Bass – 38’36’’

Nikolaus Gerszewski - Violin

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues – Cello

Hernâni Faustino – Double Bass

Recorded in February 2008, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/ordinary-music-vol-3

Reviews

Vindo das artes plásticas e interessado em aplicar como músico (violino neste disco, piano em outras realizações) as ideias que nesse campo vem desenvolvendo, Nicolaus Gerszewski designa por “Ordinary Music” a música enquanto arte não representativa, ou seja, enquanto abstracção. Participam neste terceiro volume de uma série de 18, com instrumentos e intervenientes vários, os improvisadores portugueses Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues e Hernâni Faustino. Com base em diagramas e instruções escritas, na tradição Fluxus e com referências no indeterminismo de John Cage e Christian Wolff ou nos processos de Cornelius Cardew, o quarteto de cordas trabalha de forma interessante, ainda que sem especial brilho, conceitos como os de “espaço sonoro”, “superfície sonora” e “objecto sonoro”. Ouve-se bem, mas não podemos deixar de desejar algo mais do que a abordagem paisagística intencionada... Rui Eduardo Paes

For string trio and double bass (with the Rodrigues' and bassist Hernani Faustino as well as the composer on violin). G¸erszewski has developed notation purportedly playable by "musical laymen" as well as professionals. Perhaps so, but the net result seems rather indistinguishable from any number of string works from the 60s on, interweaving traditional and extended techniques. Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

NIKOLAUS GERSZEWSKI komponierte die Ordinary Music Vol.3 for String Trio & Double Bass (cs 136). Gespielt wird die 38-min. ‚lyrische Abstraktion‘ und ‚Klangmalerei‘, die, angelehnt zwar an Cardew und Wolff, eigene chromatische Aspekte in den Vordergrund stellt, von im selbst an der Violine, Ernesto Rodrigues an der Viola, dessen Bruder Guilherme am Cello und Hernâni Faustino am Kontrabass. ‚Ordinary‘ meint hier wohl kaum ‚ordinär‘, aber ‚ganz normal‘ und ‚gewöhnlich‘ sind diese diskanten Glissandos und Pizzikatos, dieses abwechselnd kratzige, schrille oder sonore Gefiedel und Geknarze allenfalls in der ‚Vorsicht, Musik!‘-Kiste. Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy)

Totally mysterious to this purple prose etcher until this morning, the sounds imagined by Nikolaus Gerszewski possess the qualities typical of those produced by time-honoured composers, despite the fact that he started his music-writing activity – as an autodidact - only in 2003, after having worked as a visual artist and writer in previous years. The impulse for this new expressive method, influenced both by the aforesaid experiences and the studying of opuses by John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff, came in the exact moment in which Gerszewski concentrated on the theory of “ordinary music”, the term implying a continuation of the non-representational features of figurative art in the sonic realm and the participation of trained and untrained musicians to the execution of materials mainly built on the superimposition of “layers, surfaces and objects”, thus privileging the spatial dimension as opposed to the temporal.
The scores are in essence diagrams in which the performers are instructed about what to do, without excessive concern for practice-related aspects – indeed, this piece was not rehearsed at all before its premiere, at Lisbon’s Goethe Institut in the February of 2008. The severe focus and committed empathy shown by the quartet – the composer on violin, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and metronome, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and Hernâni Faustino on double bass - makes for over 38 minutes of superbly synchronized improvisation, completely devoid of axioms and clichés yet somehow affirmative in regard to a logical chain of events and ideal meshing of the instrumental tints. Call-and-response phrases are interchanged with instinctively well-placed successions of awe-inspiring glissandos, percussive knocks and scraped tremolos blending in far-from-comfortable counterpoints that, however, emphasize the aura of wholeness that surrounds the players.
The depth of this respect, for the partners and the underlying concept alike, is such that there’s not a note or gesture that appears inconsiderate or, worse, selfish. In virtue of the basic premises, what ‘s heard in this album definitely borders on the extraordinary, Gerszewski’s essential notion notwithstanding. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

O alemão Nikolaus Gerszewski vem desenvolvendo um sistema de notação musical próprio, que combina uma série de indicações escritas com sinais visuais - para os curiosos, o “score” desta peça Ordinary Music Vol. 3 (For String Trio & Double Bass) encontra-se disponívelaqui. Este quarteto de cordas liderado por Gerszewski (violin), é constituído por Ernesto Rodrigues (na viola), Guilherme Rodrigues (filho de Ernesto, colaborador habitual dos seus diversos projectos, no violoncelo) e Hernâni Faustino (do trio do japonês Nobuyasu Furuya e do excelente RED Trio, no contrabaixo). Incrivelmente, a música deste disco foi gravada ao vivo num concerto no Goethe Institut em Lisboa, em Fevereiro de 2008, e o grupo não realizou qualquer ensaio prévio. Parece mentira, dada a união dos instrumentos, dada a musicalidade que resulta com aparente naturalidade. Após um início porventura canónico, marcado pelas cornucópias das cordas com arco (violino, viola, violoncelo, contrabaixo), numa improvável “acessibilidade”, os instrumentos embarcam numa toada lenta, paisagística. De seguida entram numa espécie de turbulência, implicando-se em choques e confrontos, para pouco depois o grupo regressar à união. Mantendo-se sempre numa permanente comunicação, este regresso à linearidade realça de novo a musicalidade da cordas. Para o final os instrumentos deixam-se abafar, até se chegar a uma espécie de zumbido, contrastando com a massa sonora cheia percorre quase todo o disco. Impecavelmente unido, com alguns desvios menos óbvios, este é uma surpresa de um catálogo marcado pela coerência. Nuno Catarino (Bodyspace)