Un posible dia

Un posible día, quasi un radiodramma

(2010-2011)
for female voice, actor, ensemble, interactive electroacoustic system and video (ad libitum).

Title of the work: Un posible día, quasi un radiodramma -almost a radio play-.
Composer: Javier Torres Maldonado.
Duration: 55'.
Orchestration: soprano, actor; ENSEMBLE: flute (also piccolo, alto flute and bass-flute.), clarinet in Bb (also bass-clarinet.), percussion [1 player: vibraphone, 2 tam-tams (high, low), 4 sups. cymbal [high, medium and two lows), susp. cymbal (low), 4 cow bells, Chinese cymbal, 3 Javanese or Thai gongs (high, medium and low), triangle (low), spring coil, glockenspiel, whip, bass-drum, 2 maracas, 1 timpano (32' = 73 cm.), 1 Tibetan singing bowl, 4 wood blocks, 1 rainstick, 4 bamboo-cimes, 5 tom-toms, metal chimes, a 6th string guitar, 4th string violoncello or low string piano used by the percussionist to use at the edge of a cymbal, metal chimes and 1 flexatone], piano, accordion, violin I, violin II, viola, violoncello, double-bass and electronics.
Other objects used as musical instruments: 18 wooden pencils (except for the percussionist and the voice, two pencils for every musician); 9 little toys: except for the singer and for the percussionist, each performer will be assigned a small toy that produces sound (mechanically, not electronically), like a music box, clockwork toys, little harmonicas, toy rattles, toy drums (as small as possible); 7 crystal glasses (one for every of the next players: flute, clarinet, piano, accordion, violin I, violin II and viola), each one preferably with a different timbre.
Technical rider: Download HERE.
Dadicatee: Pierre Roullier.
Publisher: Edizioni Suvini Zerboni - Milano (for more information please send an e-mail to my publisher).
Year of composition: 2010-2011.
Commission: French Ministry of Culture and Ensemble 2e2m.
Original radio play: Ana Candida de Carvalho Carneiro.
Lyric texts (scenes II and IX): José Manuel Recillas.
World premiere: 20.05.2011, Maja Pavlovska (soprano), David Jisse, actor, ENSEMBLE 2E2M, Pierre Roullier (conductor), technique: La Muse en Circuit. Festival Extension, Théâtre de Villejuif, FRANCE. Technique: La Muse en Circuit, Centre National de Creation Musicale.
Music informatics and sound design: Javier Torres Maldonado and Max Bruckert (GRAME, Centre National de Création Musicale of Lyons, France.) The electroacoustic part was mixed at the studios Botticelli and Cage of “La muse en Circuit” with the assistance of sound engineer Laurent Codoul.
Graphic art and video (optional): Magali Lara.
Score (only with authorization)

CD UN POSIBLE DÍA

JAVIER TORRES MALDONADO:
UN POSIBLE DIA, quasi un radio dramma (2010-2011)
for soprano, actor, ensemble, electronics and video.

ALAMUSE
ALM 002

Co-produced by the Ensemble 2e2m, the Parisian National Center for Music Creation and new technologies “La Muse en Circuit” and FONCA/CONACULTA, Mexico.
Texts by Ana C. de Carvalho and J. M. Recillas.

Buy:

AMAZON
APPLE MUSIC
FNAC

Performers:

Maja Pavlovska (soprano), David Jisse, actor, ENSEMBLE 2E2M, Pierre Roullier (conductor), technique: La Muse en Circuit. Live recording, Festival Extension, Théâtre de Villejuif, FRANCE, 20.05.2011.
A page about this work is under construction...

Arte e Fisica del Suono

Javier Torres Maldonado published "Relazioni pluridimensionali fra suono, scrittura strumentale, orchestrazione automatica e composizione elettroacustica in un posible día, quasi un radiodramma",
an article about the application of Computer Asissted Orchestration techniques in this work. This paper is published in the book "Arte e Fisica del Suono", it includes essays by John Chowning, Paolo Allia, Davide Bonsi, Anna Dondi and Cesare Beltrami. LINK.

Sticky notes about Un posible dia, quasi un radiodramma, imaginary theater in music

Presentation of the work

UN POSIBLE DÍA (A possible day) results from the need to approach a genre which, although not related to musical drama as such, makes it possible to create fluctuations between imaginary drama and music.This idea made me ask playwright Ana Candida de Carvalho to invent a radio drama especially performed on that occasion. However, “Un posible día” is not just a radio drama. With original videos by painter Magali Lara during the premiere, it can also be called a multimedia show.

At its most embryonic stage, the piece was conceived from the idea to create a radio play in which the use of voices was natural and by the desire to get all the musical material of the work from a percussion instrument: a tam-tam played with a super-ball (see below “New alchemy: the Computer Assisted Orchestration or the travel of a composer in Wonderland”.)

It is not only in the way the different musical and theatrical elements interact with each other that we can find the idea of fluctuations between imaginary drama and music, but also in the intention of building up situations that result from the musicality of speech and the theatricality which is implicit in the dynamics of certain musical processes. In that regard, the way the voice of the leading actress is written is an obvious answer to my intentions: it simply wavers between singing and recitation.

Un posible día is a self-reflective piece with one purpose : that of answering a question whose answer is not to be found through words, but through itself : can we consider radio drama as a living genre still valid today?

UN POSIBLE DÍA: the computer assisted orchestration or the travel of a composer in Wnderland

From several years my research was oriented in part towards the possibilities to translate and transform musical objects from their spectral information into a sort of “re-synthesis”, made with different sound sources. For this purpose I used, in addition to spectral analysis, some libraries developed at IRCAM, like the Repmus, distributed with the software Open Music. However the resulting relationship between the technique used and the source sound material was not always satisfactory, especially because it was intuitive -in regard to the deduction of instrumental combinations-; indeed it was based more on my knowledge of orchestration skills than on scientific deductions. It was in 2003 that I heard about an interesting research project in the field of Computer Assisted Orchestration at IRCAM, but really I could have access to these instruments since 2009. I took many important and interesting suggestions from the first researcher who worked in the algorithm of Orchidee, my friend Grégoire Carpentier and in particular, using the software developed by him as part of the team Music Representations Group of IRCAM, I discovered a new dimension in the alchemy of composition and orchestration.

Some important musical materials presented and transformed in Un posible día derivate from the calculation of different solutions in orchestration using the software Orchids (at that time it was named Orchidée). At its most embryonic stage, the piece was conceived from the idea to create a radio play in which the use of voices was natural and by the desire to get all the musical material of the work from a percussion instrument, a tam-tam played with a super-ball, from which are derived 74 automatic orchestration solutions:

Some important musical materials presented and transformed in Un posible día derivate from the calculation of different solutions in orchestration using the software Orchidée. At its most embryonic stage, the piece was conceived from the idea to create a radio play in which the use of voices was natural and by the desire to get all the musical material of the work from a percussion instrument, a tam-tam played with a super-ball, from which are derived 74 automatic orchestration solutions:

The original harmonic field was integrated with other pitches, chromatically opposed.

Computer assisted composition in Un posible día

To open the algorithms proposed in this page it is necessary to download and install properly on your computer the PWGL application, as well as to install and/or enable the libraries esquisse, grythm and ksquant.

To operate some transformations of the materials obtained through Orchidée I developed several alogrithms in the software for Computer Assisted Composition PWGL. The starting point was a harmonic field derivated through Orchidée (solution 17).

This LINK allows to download the PWGL patch containing the basic harmonic field of the work.

The first algorithmic transformation from the harmonic field exposed above is contained in this PWGL patch. For the independent derivation of different voices, the original pitches sequence was “rotated”. Successively every pitch was associated to different rythmic values. It was also applied contractions or expansions to the inter-relations between both parameters. The piano part presents all voices "condensed" at the begining of the piece.

Download the algorithm (PWGL) from THIS link.

Ensemble and technical rider

“Un posible dia” was composed for voice (soprano), actor, ensemble and electronics. Public performances of the work can include videos by Magali Lara. Download the list of acoustic instruments by clcking HERE.

Download the Tchnical rider (electronics).

Dramatic subject

The dramatic subject focuses on an ordinary day in the life of a common woman (the protagonist), whose loneliness plunges her into various sound landscapes. On the stage of an imaginary theatre we see (almost like a “film”, due to the speed with which the various scenes often follow each other, but without explicit images, despite the presence of the video in the live show) the sounds and images from that day like any other, until an encounter, that happens in the woman’s imagination, radically changes the apparent predictability of the events».

Scenes

0. MAELSTROM (ensemble and electronics.)

I. REVEIL DE PRINTEMPS (soprano, actor, ensemble and electronics.)

II. INTROSPECTION I*) (optional scene. Soprano, pencils and percussion mallets. Lyiric text by Jose Manuel Recillas)

III. INCURSION DANS LE FEU (actor and electronics.)

IV. ABIME I (soprano, actor, ensemble et dispositif électroacoustique)

V. INCURSION DANS L’AIR (soprano, ensemble and electronics.)

VI. INTERMEZZO (actor, percussion and electronics.)

VII. DELUGE UNIVERSEL (soprano et ensemble.)

VIII. ABIME II (recited dialogue: soprano, actor and electronics.)

IX. INTROSPECTION II*) (optional scène. Soprano, percussions and toys. Lyrici texts by Jose Manuel Recillas.)

X. INCURSION DANS LA TERRE (monologue: actor.)

XI. ABIME III (soprano, actor, ensemble and electronics.)

XII. RETOUR A ITHAQUE. (soprano, actor, ensemble and electronics.)

XIII. EPILOGUE (soprano, actor, crystal glasses and percussion.)

Texts and different translations

The idea of working on a new piece with characteristics belonging more to the radio play than to the melologue had already been in my mind for some time, but the difficulty was to find a suitable subject and a text. The solution in the end was to ask the dramatist Ana Candida de Carvalho and the poet José Manuel Recillas to create the texts especially for the purpose. So, de Carvalho wrote the entire text of the radio drama and, for the scenes III and X (Introspections I and II) I used two of several poems wrote by Jose Manuel Recillas, inspired on several introspective aspects of the protagonist.

Downloads:

Original adaptation (in Italian), based on QUEL PROFONO OCEANO, by Ana Candida de Carvalho.
French translation.
Spanish translation.

Live performances of the work

WORLD PREMIERE: 20.05.2011, Maja Pavlovska (soprano), David Jisse, actor, ENSEMBLE 2E2M, Pierre Roullier (conductor), technique: La Muse en Circuit. Festival Extension, Théâtre de Villejuif, France. CONCERT PROGRAM.

NICE, FRANCE: 22.11.2011, FESTIVAL DE MANCA, CIRM, Maja Pavlovska (soprano), David Jisse, actor, ENSEMBLE 2E2M, Pierre Roullier (conductor), technique: La Muse en Circuit. Théâtre National de Nice, FRANCE.

16.11.2017, German premiere, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum of Dresden, KlangNetz Dresden concert seasson, Alessia Hyunkyung Park (soprano), Ensemble Courage, Ulrich Kern (conductor).

Electroacoustic part and music informatics

I composed Un posible día in my personal studio in Milan and during two artistic residencies at La muse en circuit, Centre National de Création Musicale (studios Botticcelli and Cage) in Paris, between 2010 and 2011. The last mix of the electronic part was made with the assistance of the Sound engineer Laurent Codoul at La muse en Circuit.

The electroacoustic part is composed for a quadraphonic sound system.

For the interactive control of the electroacoustic part and video is used a Max patch made by my friend, assistant and collaborator at GRAME (Centre National de Création Musicale) of Lyons, France, Max Bruckert.

A recorded recitation of the texts made by David Jisse on December 2010 was very important, not only for the use of his voice in different acousmatic derivations but in general as a starting point for the composition of the work.

Video

Originally conceived as a live show, Un posible día can include the projection of the videos created specifically for this work by the Mexican painter Magali Lara.

RADIO BROADCASTS AND MEDIA DIFFUSION:

Les lundis de la comteporaine by Arnaud Merlin. 27.06.2011, 20.00 h. France Musique (Radio France.) Javier Torres Maldonado par l'Ensemble 2e2m. Works programmed: “Un posible dia”, quasi un radiodramma (2010-2011), for soprano, actor, ensemble and electronics, “Rosa Mutabile” (2010), for 2 instrumental groups, “Esferal” (2006), for orchestra and electronics, “Obscuro Etiantum Lumine” (2004), for violin and 3 orchestral groups.
Concert of 20.05.2011. Available on internet from 27.06.2011 since 27.07.2011.

Radio Interview To Javier Torres Maldonado By Jean Pierre Derrian.
Les lundis de la comteporaine
Sur le vif
09.05.2011,
Live. Available on internet only until June 8, 2011.

Contact:

Email: tmjavier[at]gmail.com