Pawel Mykietyn © Marcin Oliva Soto
Presented by Ars Musica at the What’s Next festival in Belgium, the composer's Wax Music project underscores the fragile, transitory nature of music and pays homage to Thomas Edison’s invention of the gramophone in 1887
The concert on the 24th of March presents the audio mainstay of the late 19th century - Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders - in the context of contemporary music. Wax Music is a unique piece, written by Paweł Mykietyn in 2012, that brings together the past and the present, intermigling live music with sounds reproduced on stage, and playing on the differing qualities of various recording techniques. Cassette recordings disappear after a few decades, and digital media have turned out to be less reliable than we would like to admit. But wax cylinders stand the test of time - music "engraved" on them more than 100 years ago remains available for listening.
This analogue method has proved more lasting than contemporary high-tech solutions, but its physical endurance varies depending on how the cylinders were stored and their musical content, as well as the number of times they were played. Mykietyn's creation plays on this alteration of quality, determined by technology, time and use. The composer combines the analogue sound of wax-cylinder recordings with modern digital technology, juxtaposing imperfections of a gramophone with supposedly flawless computer-generated sound and live piano music played by Barbara Drążkowska. The concert is organised by Ars Musica as part of the What’s Next festival on Sunday the 24th of March at Brussels’ la Raffinerie, from 4 pm until 11 pm.
The concept of Wax Music was initiated and proposed to Mykietyn by Adelajda Merchán-Drążkowska, an ethnomusicologist who worked at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, and her sister Barbara, a pianist. They set out to explore the fleeting nature of gramophone music, and to blend it with the acoustic style of a piano and electronic composition. Mykietyn was inspired by the purely mechanical nature of the gramophone, both at the moment of recording and that of retransmission. In the words of the composer, he was inspired to create a physically "non-existent acoustic layer", one that was impossible to generate when the technology was in general use.
Mykietyn decided to employ software to create and mix sinusoidal sounds that he then transferred onto the wax rolls. The first stage was hosted by the Studio for Electronic and Digital Music at the Warsaw University of Music, where Mykietyn collaborated with Krzysztof Czaja. The second phase of the project then travelled to the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin, with the participation of Tobias Weber.
Mykietyn also wrote a special piece for the piano with the instrumentalist Barbara Drążkowska in mind. The piece was also recorded on wax cylinders, alongside the computer-generated compositions. The resulting project became a dialogue between an instrument, modern technology and history.
The number of Wax Music performances is limited. Each time, the cylinder recordings will have lost sound quality due to the very fact that the material deteriorates as the cylinders are played. Two cylinders will be used simultaneously. Since each roll can contain 2 minutes 15 seconds of music, two dozen cylinders will be necessary for the entire piece, which lasts around 25 minutes. Each performance will thus be a "one-off" show, and each time, the dialogue between the piano and the gramophones will be altered.
Wax Music
A piece for wax cylinders and piano
Adelajda Merchán-Drążkowska & Barbara Drążkowska | concept
Paweł Mykietyn | music
Barbara Drążkowska | piano
Tobias Valentin Weber | gramophones
Paweł Mykietyn (born 1971) is a graduate of the Frédéric Chopin Conservatory of Music in Warsaw, where he studied composition under Włodzimierz Kotoński. He is a clarinetist, a founder of the group Nonstrom (1990-2005), and a regular collaborator with Poland’s renowned theatre directors of his generation - Krzysztof Warlikowski and Grzegorz Jarzyna. Mykietyn has also created soundtracks for films by Mariusz Treliński, Małgorzata Szumowska, Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Skolimowski. Since 2008, he is the musical director of Warsaw’s Nowy Teatr.
In his short, incredibly fruitful career, Mykietyn had been recognised by many awards. He was presented with the major prize of the Polish public media, the Polityka Passport award, in 2000, and was recently honoured with the Prix France Musique Sacem 2012 for his score to the Skolimowski film Essential Killing.
Barbara Drążkowska is a pianist specialising in the interpretation of contemporary music. She left Poznań’s University of Music in 2005, having received a prestigious grant from the German government (DAAD), which allowed her to continue training in Cologne and Lübeck. Drążkowska has been mentored by pianists like Pierre-Laurent Aimard and James Tocco.
She won the Grand Prix as well as the New Sound Award of the 13th international chamber music competition in Kraków in 2009. These rewards allowed her to continue exploring modern music and begin working with a number of composers. After living in Poland, Germany and Spain, she settled in Belgium. Drążkowska has performed in major European concert halls and travelled to numerous international festival and is a regular collaborator of Sidi Larbi Charkaoui. She has recorded four albums to date.
Adelajda Merchan-Drążkowska studied musicology at Poznan’s Adam Mickiewicz University. It was there that she discovered her passion for ethnomusicology. She currently works at the Department for Ethnomusicology of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, where she conducts research on wax cylinder music.
Tobias Valentin Weber is a musician and collector of musical instruments, with an unparalleled knowledge of gramophone archives. He studied ethnomusicology before beginning work at the Berlin Ethnographic Museum.
Wax Music was commissioned by the National Audiovisual Institute (NInA). The project is produced by Ars Musica, the Polish Institute in Brussels, the National Audiovisual Institute in Warsaw, the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, and Charleroi Danses.
Paulina Schlosser, source: arsmusica.be, http://www.culturepolonaise.eu/