EPILOGHI by Arturas Bumšteinas
“Epiloghi. Six Ways of Saying Zangtumbtumb” for historic theater noise machines and the sounds of stage machinery, harpsichords, fortepiano, female voice and archival recording of F.T.Marinetti's voice
This composition is a multiple homage to Luigi Russolo's manifesto “Art of Noises“ (1913), René Descartes' philosophical treatise “Passions of the Soul” (1649) and Jacopo Peri's opera “Dafne” (1598).
The motto of this composition is affects versus effects. Each of it's six parts is a hypothetical epilogue to the lost Peri's opera “Dafne” (which is the earliest known work that is today considered an opera). Each of these epilogues is based on one of the basic human affects - desire, hate, love, sadness, joy and wonder (as it is proposed by Descartes). Further on - each emotion is paired with one “family of noises for the Futurist orchestra” from Russolo's “Art of Noises” manifesto and each of these families of noise found it's own equivalent on Baroque theater's stage. These so-called equivalents of the Futurist Intonarumori noise instruments are the noise-making machines that were used in Baroque theater performances in order to illustrate the phenomena of nature such as wind, thunder, rain, storm etc. The noise-machines can still be found in several historical European theaters and that's where they were recorded together with various other sounds of the stage machinery. The instrumental parts were composed by employing melodic/harmonic materials sourced from around two hundred various popular melodies ranging from 16th to 21st century. Despite the title, only one part of the whole composition is directly related to “Zang Tumb Tumb” (1914) - poem by the Futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
Composer: Arturas Bumšteinas
Harpsichords, fortepiano and voice: Christine Kessler
Historic theater noise-machines and stage machinery: Arturas Bumšteinas, Per Simon Edström, Sofia Borg, Christer Nilsson, John Kapenekas, Kati Schmidt und Eimantas Ludavičius.
Voice sample: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Recording engineer: Andreas Stoffels (Studio P4, Berlin)
Harpsichord tuner: Markus Fischinger
Producer: Marcus Gammel, Klangkunst, Deutschlandradio Kultur 2013
Theater noise-machines courtesy of: Drottningholm Palace Theater, Stockholm Music and Theater Museum, Arena Theater Institute, Ekhof-Theater at Schloss Friedenstein Gotha, Eimantas Ludavičius' studio.
Special thanks to: Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), Viktoria Tkaczyk, Oliver Sturm, Neele Hülcker, Luciano Chessa.
“Epiloghi. Six Ways of Saying Zangtumbtumb” received “Palma Ars Acustica” EURORADIO award for the best Radio Art production of the year 2013.
