Remixer II

by [PH]

Interpretation is still futile

Listening to music in a contemplative way is useless its for pedagogic or melancholic purpose and can easily be compared to masturbation unless the listened material is produced live. On the other hand, buttons tickling , recorded streams alteration, slicing and recomposing without indulgence for the broadcasted work and thus building a new space and a new time around it, opening new aural and musical perspectives on an exhausted tune is a much more enjoyable source of interest.

To remix the Requiem is to make a cover of a work so often heard and so seldom listened to that it became decorative, meaningless, senseless… The point is then not to simply rephrase Mozart, but to play with him, trough its performers. Built up a new acoustic entity whose body would be the recorded audio supply, known but with the symbolic and temporal coercion inherited from the original. Recording is an archive if, and only if, it is used as a mean of remembrancer. The point is not the way you listen to music, but the way it is broadcasted.

This article is an addition to Remixer, an article about Requiem Remix, an audio work in progress.

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Remixer

by [PH]

Interpretation is futile …

The requiem isn’t a remix in the canonical way.  The point with it is not to rephrase the original work in order to add to its meaning. Neither is it to produce extra content or to extend the original work’s duration. It is not a way to produce a more fashionable or enjoyable version of Mozart’s masterpiece. Anyway, its not about the work and neither it is about Mozart. Its all a matter of medium, media and era.

I personally can’t write music score like “real musicians” do. Its not that i don’t know how or I’m not able to … its just that there is no real point for me in writing music this way. Neither can i use traditional (analogical) instrument since they don’t fit my needs either.

I need to work on complex sounds and to be as close as possible to the semantic essence of sound to make it somehow usable in my work. I don’t sample, I use, I exploit, I rework, I develop, I play Mozart played by Bohm. I use the requiem as the soundtrack to a new musical performance. The original work is a starting point and could have given birth to various different designs. Actually, the design is the only thing that matters. Yet the requiem in itself sounds with its really identity in my work and is identifiable in all of my work but reshaped in a way that makes it obvious for the listener to endeavor it as a real new aural experience

The Requiem is used as a word in a sentence, as a pronoun. Depending on the other words and meaning of the sentence, its position and the implication meant by the usage of this word may be different, more or less literal, accentuated or derelict. The verb is the score and the score is a program, an electronic program. Nopthing is automated, only the way the source can be played is controled by the coded score.

I work with a computer from electronic sounds only. They are two main ways of acquiring such sounds. Computer assisted synthesis or recording. Ripping audio from CD is the same as recording one’s voice trough a microphone… its a recording in a numeric format. The sounds i use in my work are not used simply as sounds but rather as instruments, characters. That’s where the big difference lies. I’m not a deejay, I’m not a remix artist, I’m kind of a computer assisted instrumentalist. Where some add & merge sounds from various sources to make a genuine work relying on the “memory” of those sounds in a positive way. I tends to hack into the identity of such sounds and works in order to generate a neutral work. Independent from the original.

Considering Mozart’s requiem as a musical instrument is obvious to me. Each section of the work being considered as a tonality and a general “mode” of playing lets me, the instrumentalist, play on those modes and give the audience the opportunity to hear a performance of Mozart’s requiem. Not a performance based on the score but one based on the recording that have been made of it & spoken in a foreign language trough a computer assisted interface. In the end, its all a question of what is “listening” to music ? I’m kind of an active listener!

About the Requiem-Remix

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Agnus-A : Requiem Remix feat. W.A. Mozart

by [PH]

The Agnus Dei is a trance prayer sung / said by the congregation / mass during any mass. Its the most hypnotic of all chants in ht requiem. It aims to put the audience deep in condition for the mystical ritual that will take place later during the celebration. Repetition is the key ! (this movement is usually the fifth of the work but was the first i worked on so i decided to introduce it earlyer which doesn’t means it will be performed the same)

  1. Agnus Dei :

This article is the fourth out of 14 which will document the progress of this project. Requiem Remix feat. W.A. Mozart is more than remixing but an usage of an given sound work as the material for a completely new one. So it aims to be more than interpretation and may sound very different from the original. The only restriction i gave myself in this exercise are :
1) : only use material from the W.A. Mozart’s requiem recordings
2) : stick as much as possible to the original duration.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, § 83, states: “The supplication Agnus Dei, is, as a rule, sung by the choir or cantor with the congregation responding; or it is, at least, recited aloud. This invocation accompanies the fraction and, for this reason, may be repeated as many times as necessary until the rite has reached its conclusion, the last time ending with the words dona nobis pacem (grant us peace).”
— Excerpted from “Agnus Dei” on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.>

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Dies Irae : Requiem Remix feat. W.A. Mozart

by [PH]

Dies Irae is somehow the “Best-Of” Mozart. The tune that everyone can whistle. Some totem of sound, the holly graal of music … whatever. Something that cannot be edited, remixed, interpreted but destroyed.

  1. Dies Irae : listen
This article is the third out of 14 which will document the progress of this project. Requiem Remix feat. W.A. Mozart is more than remixing but an usage of an given sound work as the material for a completely new one. So it aims to be more than interpretation and may sound very different from the original. The only restriction i gave myself in this exercise are :
1) : only use material from the W.A. Mozart’s requiem recordings
2) : stick as much as possible to the original duration.

Dies Irae is a famous Latin hymn originally scripted by Tommaso da Celano. Often considered one of the foremost and widely known hymns of its time, it is distinguished by its classical three-line, perfect-rhyme stanza.
The Latin text is taken from the Requiem Mass in the 1962 Roman Missal. The English version below was translated by William Josiah Irons in 1849 and appears in the English Missal. Note that the below translation is not literal, but modified to fit the rhyme and meter.
— Excerpted from Dies Irae on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.>

1
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!
2
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
3
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
4
Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.
5
Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.
6
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.
7
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?
8
Rex tremendæ majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me, fons pietatis.
9
Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuæ viæ:
ne me perdas illa die.
10
Quærens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.
11
Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.
12
Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.
13
Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.
14
Preces meæ non sunt dignæ:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.
15
Inter oves locum præsta,
et ab hædis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.
16
Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.
17
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.		 1
Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets’ warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
2
Oh what fear man’s bosom rendeth,
when from heaven the Judge descendeth,
on whose sentence all dependeth.
3
Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;
through earth’s sepulchers it ringeth;
all before the throne it bringeth.
4
Death is struck, and nature quaking,
all creation is awaking,
to its Judge an answer making.
5
Lo! the book, exactly worded,
wherein all hath been recorded:
thence shall judgment be awarded.
6
When the Judge his seat attaineth,
and each hidden deed arraigneth,
nothing unavenged remaineth.
7
What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
when the just are mercy needing?
8
King of Majesty tremendous,
who dost free salvation send us,
Fount of pity, then befriend us!
9
Think, good Jesus, my salvation
cost thy wondrous Incarnation;
leave me not to reprobation!
10
Faint and weary, thou hast sought me,
on the cross of suffering bought me.
shall such grace be vainly brought me?
11
Righteous Judge! for sin’s pollution
grant thy gift of absolution,
ere the day of retribution.
12
Guilty, now I pour my moaning,
all my shame with anguish owning;
spare, O God, thy suppliant groaning!
13
Thou the sinful woman savedst;
thou the dying thief forgavest;
and to me a hope vouchsafest.
14
Worthless are my prayers and sighing,
yet, good Lord, in grace complying,
rescue me from fires undying!
15
With thy favored sheep O place me;
nor among the goats abase me;
but to thy right hand upraise me.
16
While the wicked are confounded,
doomed to flames of woe unbounded
call me with thy saints surrounded.
17
Low I kneel, with heart submission,
see, like ashes, my contrition;
help me in my last condition.
The poem appears complete as it stands at this point. Some scholars question whether the remainder is an addition made in order to suit the great poem for liturgical use, for the last stanzas discard the consistent scheme of triple rhymes in favor of rhymed couplets, while the last two lines abandon rhyme for assonance and are, moreover, catalectic:
18
Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
19
Pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.		 18
Ah! that day of tears and mourning!
From the dust of earth returning
man for judgment must prepare him;
Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!
19
Lord, all pitying, Jesus blest,
grant them thine eternal rest. Amen.
In 1970 the Dies Iræ was removed from the Missal and since 1971 it is proposed ad libitum as a hymn for the Liturgy of the Hours at the Office of Readings, Lauds and Vespers. For this purpose stanza 19 was deleted and the poem divided into three sections: 1-6 (for the Office of Readings), 7-12 (for Lauds) and 13-18 (for Vespers. In addition Qui Mariam absolvisti in stanza 13 was replaced by Peccatricem qui solvisti so that that line would now mean, “You who freed the sinful woman”. In addition a doxology is given after stanzas 6, 12 and 18:
doxology:
O tu, Deus majestatis,
alme candor Trinitatis
nos coniunge cum beatis. Amen.		 doxology:
O God of majesty
nourishing light of the Trinity
join us with the blessed. Amen.
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