© Klaus Rudolf LIZA LIM (*1966)
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© Klaus Rudolf LIZA LIM (*1966) Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus (2018) 1 Anthropogenic debris 11:15 1 – 5 Sophie Schafleitner, violin Klangforum Wien Klangforum Wien 1 – 5 Vera Fischer, flute 2 Retrograde inversion 06:52 Peter Rundel, conductor 1 – 5 7 Markus Deuter, oboe 6 Lorelei Dowling, bassoon 1 – 5 Olivier Vivarès, clarinet 3 Autocorrect 04:21 7 Klangforum Wien 7 Manfred Spitaler, clarinet Stefan Asbury, conductor 1 – 5 Lorelei Dowling, bassoon 4 Transmission 05:02 7 Gerald Preinfalk, saxophone 1 – 5 7 Anders Nyqvist, trumpet 5 Dawn Chorus 12:46 1 – 5 Christoph Walder, horn 1 – 5 Jonathan Roskilly, trombone 1 – 5 Florian Müller, piano 1 – 5 Benedikt Leitner, violoncello 6 Axis Mundi (2013) 08:08 1 – 5 Uli Fussenegger, double bass 7 Andreas Lindenbaum, cello 7 Songs Found in Dream (2005) 14:08 7 Michael Seifried, double bass 1 – 5 7 Lukas Schiske, percussion 7 Berndt Thurner, percussion TT 62:36 2 3 Landscapes of Rather late in the day, the world is wak- The debris in question is, on a programmat- Knowledge: Liza Lim ing up to the destructive power of West- ic level, the vast collections of plastic that ern forms of knowledge – the relentless, have ended up in the world’s oceans and self-centred drives to acquire, occupy have been gathered by circulatory currents and consume at the expense of a habit- (known as gyres) into giant, swirling patch- able planet. As noted by the philosopher es of rubbish and pollutants. As they turn, Timothy Morton, whose work Lim frequent- plastic is drawn into them and then ground The dreamscape of “song” and “sing- ly cites, the challenges of climate change into smaller and more dangerous parti- ing” in Aboriginal culture is intimate- and mass extinction require new forms of cles – which themselves pose an existential ly connected to the land. When one thinking: a favoured term of his is “hyperob- threat to life on Earth. Lim’s piece is there- walks through country with a custodi- jects”, that is, phenomena that are so large fore full of representations of looping and an of the land, one begins to see that that they may only be known partially and turning, as well as degradation and loss. every stone, every plant, every inch of through their effects, like climate change. Her materials include a recording of the earth is named … and contains within These are the subject of Extinction Events mating call of a now-extinct bird (the Kaua‘i it whole histories and liturgies of peo- and Dawn Chorus (2018) for twelve musi- ‘ō‘ō from Hawai‘i); tracings of a ninth-centu- ple and ancestors. cians, one of Lim’s most substantial instru- ry Chinese star map (recycled from an ear- Liza Lim, mental works. As she writes herself: lier violin solo The Su Song Star Map, 2018); programme note to and allusions to historical music, in the Songs found in dream The upending of linear progression by form of warped spectral readings of bars the accelerating forces of the ‘new from Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path. All Knowledge may be acquired in many ways, normals’ of environmental emergen- of them represent forms of extinction or through texts or teaching, through doing, cies and the way deep histories of lost forms of knowledge. The star map pre- through experience. It may encompass non-human time are exposed by spe- dates Western astronomy by five hundred the feel of an instrument or the sensation cies mass extinction challenges us years, but its achievement has been erased of a particular sound. From the calligraphy with ruptures in how we might or- by history. The Kaua‘i ‘ō‘ō mating call is of of Japan to the knots of Nordic sailors to ganise what is and what counts as the last of its species, and will never be an- the songlines of Aboriginal Australians, Liza knowledge. 1 swered. The Janáček was described by its Lim has been inspired by alternative ways to create, preserve and transfer knowledge, Extinction Events is in five movements. The 1 Liza Lim (2020), “An Ecology of Time often through direct sensory rather than in- title of the first,Anthropogenic Debris, most Traces in Extinction Events and Dawn tellectual experience. explicitly sets the tone of ecological crisis. Chorus”, Contemporary Music Review. 4 5 composer as comprising reminiscences ‘so er-scale slippage of identity in the fourth the group’s twentieth birthday in 2011. This an extensive key system that barely manag- dear to me that I do not think they will ever movement, Transmission, in which a solo vi- work brought extended improvisation into es to control the instrument’s inherent “out- vanish’; Lim’s warped spectral translations olin attempts to “teach” musical material to Lim’s music for the first time in more than of-tuneness”. These irregularities of tuning of Janáček’s motifs are bitterly ironic. a percussionist playing a rudimentary string fifteen years, and was composed as part and colour became a source of fascina- The image of circulation, analogous to the drum. Through loops of repetition and re- of a long process of “distributed creativity” tion and exploration for both Lim and Wesly, turning ocean gyres, is extended to the mu- tracing, the limits of that knowledge and its between composer and musicians. 2 During with the player not only offering the com- sic itself. Particularly important are the use transmission are exposed. this period, Lim developed what she calls poser a pool of sounds and techniques for of short repeats – sometimes nested with- a “mycelial model” of creativity (inspired by use (the more typical new music transac- in other repeats, or played misaligned from In the final movement of the piece is a re- the metaphor used by the British anthropol- tion), but also entering into a collaborative one another – and Waldteufels, a percus- markable sound, based on a real phenome- ogist Tim Ingold of fungal mycelia – the vast spirit that extended into creating an entirely sion instrument made from a wooden han- non: the dawn chorus of coral reef fish that networks of hidden threads by which fun- new way of conceiving of and notating tim- dle and a small drum, attached to each oth- takes place in the changing light of morn- gi transmit nutrients and other elements bre and multiphonics on the bassoon. er by a string and played by turning the ing; a mass of clicking, rasping percussive between themselves and other organisms, stick to make the string vibrate. As so of- sounds, transcribed by Lim through the such as trees) in which both participants Axis Mundi’s title alludes to Yggdrasil, the ten in Lim’s music, a central poetic image sound of Waldteufels and windwands being within a collaboration are drawn into an in- cosmic tree of Norse mythology, which is extended and explored across every di- swirled in the air. As the music passes the- tertwining practice that extends beyond mension of the music, creating a work that oretically below the range of human hear- the score itself. 3 Again, this represents an- 2 See Eric Clarke, Mark Doffman and Liza is not programmatic or narrative in the con- ing (thanks to a contrabassoon that has other type of knowledge formation: knowl- Lim (2013), “Distributed Creativity and ventional sense, but that offers an experi- been extended with a metre of plastic tub- edge as a distributed practice, compiled Ecological Dynamics in Liza Lim’s Tongue ence – for performers as well as audience – ing), we end listening to a song that we can between and amongst people, through at- of the Invisible”, Music and Letters 94(4): of the presence of that idea in sound. no longer know nor understand, looking to tentiveness and experience. 628 – 663. a future perhaps no longer meant for us. 3 Liza Lim (2016), “A Mycelial Model for Circulation also entails slippage: as debris After Tongue of the Invisible, Lim was asked Understanding Distributed Creativity: loops back, it recalls both the past (nostal- Throughout her career, Lim has empha- by Musikfabrik to write two solo pieces, Collaborative Partnership in the Making gically) and its present (abjectly). Lim’s mu- sised the special knowledge exchange that The Green Lion Eats the Sun (2014) for dou- of ‘Axis Mundi’ (2013) for Solo Bassoon”, in: CMPCP Performance Studies Network sic creates a space in which such slippag- can take place between a performer and ble-bell euphonium player Melvyn Poore, Second International Conference, 4 – 7 es in time and identity occur on every level, composer. Since the late 1980s she has and Axis Mundi (2013) for bassoonist Al- April 2013, Cambridge, UK, available at: whether that is the timbral slippages cre- worked closely with the Australian ELISION ban Wesly. As it often does, Lim’s work on http://www.cmpcp.ac.uk/wp-content/ ated by brass instruments playing unsta- ensemble, and in 2010 she began an ad- Axis Mundi began with the practicalities of uploads/2015/11/PSN2013_Lim.pdf. See also Tim Ingold (2011), Being Alive: Essays ble half-valve sounds (as in the opening duo ditional association with Cologne’s Musik- the instrument: a bassoon is a long wooden on Movement, Knowledge and Description between horn and trumpet), or the larg- fabrik, writing Tongue of the Invisible for tube, drilled with air holes and covered with (London: Routledge). 6 7 acts as an “axis mundi” connecting heaven gan a series of works that engage with (but protected. In her music, Lim realises a son- sionally locks together to hint at an under- and earth; and to the “world tree” in Siberi- are careful never to quote) the art and cul- ic “shimmer” in various ways: homorhyth- lying presence before being pulled apart an shamanism, which acts as a ladder be- ture of Aboriginal Australia, in particular mic pulses, tremolos or the granulated hiss once more.