Like much of Maessian's
music, the Quartet for the End of Time is an
abridged dialogue between sound and divinity.
The Louange à l'Éternité de
Jésus (Praise to Jesus' Eternity) is the
fifth movement from the Quartet and features
a slow moving melody with triadic accompaniment.
Originally written for cello and piano, this
arrangement for the Los Angeles Electric 8 distributes
the piano accompaniment among the six outer guitars
and the cello melody in the center two. The movement
is reverential and bids the listener to focus
on Jesus' eternal nature.
Messiean's Quartet for the End of Time was completed
in 1940, while the composer was interned in a German
prison camp. Among his fellow detainees were a
clarinetist, a violinist and a cellist. Performed
for fellow prisoners and camp officers during January
of 1941, the Quartet for the End of Time has grown
to be Messiaen's most well known composition.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
Four Preludes & Fugues
1. Prelude No. 8 - BWV
853
2. Fugue No. 8 - BWV 853
3. Prelude No. 14 - BWV
883
4. Fugue No. 21 - BWV 886
Two steps
removed. We started with Brazilian composer
Heitor Villa-Lobos' cello orchestra arrangements
of four of Bach's preludes and fugues from
the Well Tempered Clavier. The electric guitars
actually sit in-between the two versions,
the guitars being able to attack like a piano
and sing like a cello. Extending Villa-Lobos'
thickening of parts through voice doublings
and aural spatialization this arrangement
of the arrangement splits the parts only
to fit them back together like a musical
puzzle.
CORNELIUS BOOTS (b.1974)
Va Larga
Composer and
bass clarinet innovator Cornelius Boots offered
the Los Angeles Electric 8 this rocking piece
from the vaults of his bass clarinet quartet,
Edmund Welles. Though Boots draws from guitar
stylings for his bass clarinet compositions
(he released an album of Black Sabbath and
Sepultura covers on bass clarinet quartet)
his co-arrangement for the Electric 8 preserves
some of the bass clarinet character by employing
slides, ebows, and overdrive pedals. At the
same time, it gives in to riffy guitar patterns
in odd time signatures that feel more like
swaggers than limps.
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Octet
1. Sinfonia
2. Tema Con Variazione
3. Finale
Stravinsky's
wind octet (for flute, clarinet, bassoons,
trumpets, and trombones) is an opportunity
for the octet to explore the wide range of
timbres of the electric guitar. Varied pickup
selections and some touches of overdrive mimic
the sounds of the original instruments, transforming
the octet while respecting Stravinsky's deliberated
timbral combinations. Written in 1923, this
piece was one of Stravinsky's early re-examinations
of classical and baroque music. While it
is clear that he took inspiration from older
traditions of Western music, his sense of
play and humor offer a lightness to this
challenging piece.
GIOVANNI DOMENICO ROGNONI
TAEGGIO (d.1626)
GIOVANNI GABRIELI (c.1555-1612)
La Porta,
Canzone
Sonata XII a 8
O Jesu mi dulcissime
These three adaptations of choral pieces from
the Italian high Renaissance re-present these
composers’ interest in the Venetian
polychoral experiments: spatially separating
halves opposing halves of a choir to create
a musical dialogue across the performance
venue. In modern renditions of these early
trials of stereo sound, eight electric guitars
substitute for the grandeur of the Basilica
San Marco di Venezia.
FRANK J. OTERI (b.1965)
Imagined Overtures
1. Natural Selection
2. Intelligent Design
3. Exquisite Panic
We add a drummer to perform New York composer
Frank Oteri's microtonal rock pieces. The
original is for two guitars, bass and drums.
With the added power of the octet, we are
able to bring a new heaviness to these three
explorations of microtuning (splitting a
fret into thirds by retuning). Don't expect
an out-of-tune Rolling Stones. These are
smart compositional investigations that you
can headbang.
FELIX SALAZAR (b.1978)
Picture Perfect Life
Written for The Los Angeles Electric 8, this
piece explores the sounds of 36-tone equal
temperament tuning (the octave divided into
36 equal parts rather than the traditional
12). Its apparent simplicity is thwarted
by both subtle and suprising rhythmic patterns
and harmonies. Each of the three sections
examine and exploit different aspects of
the tuning while playing with traditional
tuning and tonality.
NATHANIEL BRADDOCK (b.1971)
Ill Tempered Lancaran
Chicago guitarist/composer Nathaniel Braddock
funnels his knowledge of Javanese gamelan
into six electric guitars and two electric
basses. The result is a aural double-take: "Are
those guitars or bronze gongs?" This
piece confirms the timbral similarity of
two seemingly different types of instrument-guitar
and gamelan. It is written in traditional
Javanese lancaran form and the guitars
retune their strings to achieve the microtonal
nuances of the Javanese slendro tuning.
A False Course from Plain
Guitars turn into bells in Braddock's play with
European bell ringing traditions. We surround
the audience to add a spacial element. Over
the course of 15-20 minutes, patterns emerge
and dodge back into the spare interchange
of eight hocketed notes.
Armour Square Vespers
This wash of microtonal chords gives rise to
unexpected harmonies and beating patterns.
Written for improvising guitars, it plays
with incessant chords with attention to silences
and declamations.
We'll never know if Dimitri Shostakovich would
have written for electric guitar, but this
arrangement of his double string quartet
makes you wonder if he would have found voice
for his early works in a metal band—Schostakovich
wrote these two disorienting contemplative
pieces at age eighteen following the Russian
Revolution.
FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Organ Sonata in F minor
1. Allegro moderato e
serioso
2. Adagio
3. Andante (Recitative)
4. Allegro assai vivace
The organ and the electric guitar have a lot
in common: the physical distance between
the played instrument and the sound source,
the range of possible effects (organ stops
and guitar pedals), the sheer volume, and
even some timbral similarities. This arrangement
splits the voices juggled by an organist
among six electric guitars and two electric
basses, creating "clean" and "overdriven"
halves of the group. The result showcases the
dynamic timbral range of the electric guitar
and offers another perspective on the music of
the "discoverer" of Johann Sebastian
Bach.
WAYNE SIEGEL (b.1953)
Domino Figures
Originally for 10-100 classical guitars, we think
the sound of eight electric guitars makes
up for being two guitars shy. This long minimalist
piece highlights the acoustic artifacts produced
by blending the sounds of many electric guitars,
producing ethereal undertones and overtones.
The effect is greater than the sum of the
parts, revealing overtones that are particular
to the electric guitar.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-1790)
Quartetto a 3 Violini con Violoncello
1. Intrada, alla breve
2. Menuetto
3. Capriccio
4. Menuetto
5. Siciliana
While America’s closest approximation to
Leonardo Da Vinci was a proven innovator in musical
instruments and arrangement, his musical taste
was fairly conservative. We couldn’t help
but arrange his severely tonal string quartet
scordatura (retuned to be played on all open
strings) for electric instruments. We stay faithful
to his arrangement by capoing the guitars and
playing open strings with the right hand only.
PETER YATES (b.1953)
G-string Fetish
It’s all in the title. Our electric version
of Yates's short work for multiple classical
guitars shows the free improvisational tendencies
of the electric guitar and a greater play with
dynamics.
RANDALL KOHL (b.1960)
Balinesa: El canto de los changos
Contrasting with Braddock’s "Ill Tempered
Lancaran,"
this adaptation of Balinese Kecak brings the
music of 100 men reenacting the a battle from
the Ramayana to electric guitars. The
tight interlocking figures create thick textures
of sound in reminiscent of American minimalist
compositions.
