electrocd

Track listing detail

Bruits

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 1997-2001
  • Duration: 29:46
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISWC: T0713769448

Stereo

This project was born out of a commission from the Sonic Arts Network (United Kingdom), for the realization of an environmental tableau, a type of musical postcard depicting a place that is dear to me.

Stunned by the noises of the ‘city,’ and in spite of my resistance motivated by a desire to fulfill the commission, I found myself swept along in a much different direction from that which was expected of me. The sound samples, captured for the most part in the summer of 1997 in the streets and lanes of the city of Montréal, were exploded, mutilated, in order to render them more appropriate to my memory — to my sonic impression of this city, explored in every sense.

Noise (‘bruit’ in French) is the dominating feature. ‘Smooth’ noise, a constant and immutable murmur — the sum of human machines. Explosive noises, heterogeneous fragments that invade from all angles like small darts that pierce through the mass in passing, only to melt again into the sonorous ambiance of which they are part: granular noises, infinitesimal parcels of sound that have lost their soul while loosing their cause, and which the wind sweeps away like dust; ‘marked’ sounds, like the long melancholic glissando that comes to earth from planes that pass overhead throughout the day. Everything is ‘spoiled,’ deformed, exploded.


Children’s Corner

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 1997
  • Duration: 14:57
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: Sonic Arts Network (SAN) with support from The Arts Council of England, ACREQ [8-track version] with support from CCA
  • ISWC: T0713769415

Stereo

ISRC CAD500114330

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

A series of tableaux, each centered around a relatively homogeneous, diurnal sonic ‘world’: street festivals, markets, outside sports, machines, public gardens, lanes.

The fragmentation technique used creates a generally hazy effect: a sort of sonic smog that sometimes clears to reveal the laughter or cry of a child combined with the infant-like squeals of the omnipresent swallows and of the “bip-bip” back up warnings that all types of large delivery and service vehicles with which are equipped (such strange music boxes).


Children’s Corner was realized at the composer’s studio in Montréal in 1997 and premiered on May 7, 1998 at the Bangor University (Wales, UK). Thanks to Joseph Hyde of the Sonic Arts Network (SAN, UK) to have ‘triggered’ this work. The stereo version of Children’s Corner was commissioned by Sonic Arts Network (SAN) with support from The Arts Council of England; the octophonic version (realized in 1998) was commissioned by ACREQ with support from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and premiered in June 1998 in Montréal.

Composition

Premiere

  • June 1998, Premiere of the 8-channel version: Concert, Montréal (Québec)
  • May 7, 1998, Concert, Bangor University, Bangor (Wales, UK)

Nuit

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 1998
  • Duration: 8:34
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: IMEB
  • ISWC: T0713769426

Stereo

ISRC CAD500114340

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

(Night) A long linear form, a type of adagio that reuses part of the material from the first movement, treating it in a much more formal and abstract manner. It is as though all the noises accumulated during the day continued, flattened, in the mind of the sleeper, reduced to a tinnitus that becomes confused with the sonic activity of nocturnal insects and with the very real, though distant, hum of the sleeping city.


Nuit was realized at the Charybde studio of the Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB, France) in 1998 and premiered in June 1999 during Synthèse, the Bourges International Electronic Music and Creation Festival (France). Nuit was commissioned by the Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB, France).

Composition

Premiere

  • June 1999, Synthèse 1999: Concert, Bourges (Cher, France)

Fête

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 2001
  • Duration: 6:09
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISWC: T0713769437

Stereo

ISRC CAD500114350

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

(Party) It is summer and Montréal transforms itself into an immense outside stage: parades for various causes, political celebrations, festivals of all kinds (fireworks, jazz, comedy). Fête (Party) is a sort of allegro barbaro, a frenetic dance where music of the streets, clamoring voices, cries and whistles combine. A dizzy swirling of musical noises of all styles: fiddler and ‘accordioner,’ bag pipes, African drums, military fanfares, Dixieland, ‘classical’ musicians, electric guitars and rock bands.


Fête was realized at the composer’s studio in Montréal during the fall 2000 and winter 2001. Thanks to Christian Bouchard for his help in collecting sounds.

Composition


Impromptu 2

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 1995
  • Duration: 16:19
  • Instrumentation: piano, synthetizer (Roland JV-80, Max/MSP sampler) and stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: SMCQ, with support from the CALQ
  • ISWC: T0703682443

Stereo

ISRC CAD500114360

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

I completed this piece thanks to the help of Chopin who, for the occasion, loaned me his Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, opus 66 for piano. All the materials in my piece (aside from a brief allusion to Schumann) come from this work: the harmonic colours, the pitches, but also the agitation in the writing, the overly abundant energy, the tension. A sort of cry expressing the ‘tortures of the soul’ that continue to plague contemporary human beings, in spite of the myth of a liberating technology. We remain unabashed Romantics…

[i-01]


Impromptu 2 premiered on January 30, 1996 by Manuel Schweizer, piano, and Anne Gaudemer, keyboard both from the Ensemble Grame, during the concert Live from Lyon produced by SMCQ at Salle Pierre-Mercure in Montréal. Impromptu 2 was commissioned by the SMCQ with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ).

Composition

Premiere

  • January 30, 1996, Manuel Schweizer, piano; Anne Gaudemer, keyboard • Live from Lyon, Salle Pierre-Mercure — Centre Pierre-Péladeau, Montréal (Québec)

About this sound recording

This performance of Impromptu 2 was performed by Jacques Drouin, piano, and Lorraine Vaillancourt, keyboard, recorded at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal by Jean Landry in December 2000, and mixed at the composer’s studio.

Performers

Recording

Mixing


La gamme

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 1981, 2000
  • Duration: 14:55
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: GMEB
  • ISWC: T0707669815

Stereo

ISRC CAD500114370

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

(The Scale) April 1981. The Charybde Studio (IMEB, Bourges, France) has become my refuge. I am surrounded by electronic equipment. All these electron twisters make me feel a little dizzy. I open the window for some fresh air.

From the courtyard, faint sounds from the adjoining music school come to me. Rising and descending scales, slow and meticulous, fast, restless, hesitant, naïve, virtuosic. The sounds mingle, overlap, and yet are drawn together by a single desire: order.

A stranger, so to speak, to the ‘electronic’ tradition, I first tackled this complex apparatus of analog synthesis at the Charybde Studio with the naïveté of a child practicing scales. Invited to this studio by the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Bourges (GMEB, now IMEB), I was fascinated and awestruck by the rich raw sound produced by these machines. I took the oscillators at their word: I made these little producers of ‘pure’ sound sing, groan, scream, and mostly spin in a sort of staggering and frenetic dance of electronic scales and arpeggios: techno music before its time…

The present version does not constitute an actual re-writing of the work, but rather a revision of the ‘orchestration’ by the addition here and there of supplemental colours and a reworking of the mix.


La gamme was realized at the Charybde studio of the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Bourges (GMEB — now the IMEB — France) in 1981 and premiered on June 1981 during Synthèse, the Festival international de musique expérimentale de Bourges (France, 1981). La gamme was commissioned by GMEB (now IMEB). The current version was revised in 2000.

Composition

Revision

Premiere

  • June 1981, Synthèse 1981: Concert, Bourges (Cher, France)

Ouverture

Yves Daoust

  • Year of composition: 1989
  • Duration: 14:55
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: GMEB
  • ISWC: T0705499906

Stereo

ISRC CAD500114380

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

1760: The end of New France, the colony passes into the hands of the British. Thus this small French colony in America begins a new course, along a path that it will have to discover for itself.

1793: The beheading of Louis XVI. The high clergy of Lower Canada (Québec), under British authority, profits from the tremendous impact of this news on the population, and persists in its attachment to the image of a monarchist France in order to solidify its undertakings.

1837: Inspired by the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), a group of patriots from Lower Canada attempt to provoke civil disobedience with the aim of breaking ties with England and creating the Republic of Canada.

1839: The Durham report, advocating the union of the Canadas as well as the assimilation of French Canadians.

1976: Sovereignist forces, lead by René Lévesque, come to power in Quebec and attempt, by democratic means, to obtain independence. Failure of the first referendum, in which the “yes” side is defeated by more than 20% of the vote. Fifteen years later, separatists loose a second referendum in which there is only a 1% difference between the two sides. History continues…


Ouverture was realized at the composer’s studio in Montréal in 1989 and premiered in June 1989 during Synthèse, the Festival international de musique expérimentale de Bourges (France, 1989). This work was commissioned by GMEB for the Bicentenaire de la Révolution française. Recorded voices: Philippe Lavalette (Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, father); Simon Finn (Lord Durham); Pierre Mollet (Mgr Plessis); Louis Verdy (Robert Nelson).

Composition

Premiere

  • June 14, 1989, Synthèse 1989: De la Révolution française IV: Ondes de choc à l’étranger, Bourges (Cher, France)