RYAN CARTER Chamber Works

RYAN CARTER Chamber Works JACK Quartet Yarn/Wire Calder Quartet Emanuele Torquati Duo Dillon-Torquati Keith Kirchoff RYAN CARTER (*1980) 1 too many arguments in line 17 (2010) 09:22 2 When All Else Fails (2017) 10:39 3 grip (2006) 15:51 4 Errata (2010) 10:41 5 break; (2018) 16:34 6 On the limits of a system and the consequences of my decisions (2016) 09:22 TT 72:29 JACK Quartet 1 Calder Quartet 3 Emanuele Torquati, piano 4 Christopher Otto, violin Benjamin Jacobson, violin Ari Streisfeld, violin Andrew Bulbrook, violin Duo Dillon-Torquati 5 John Pickford Richards, viola Jonathan Moerschel, viola Francesco Dillon, piano Kevin McFarland, cello Eric Byers, cello Emanuele Torquati, piano Yarn/Wire 2 The Calder Quartet appears Keith Kirchoff, piano 6 Laura Barger, piano courtesy of Pentatone Jacob Rhodebeck, piano Ian Antonio, percussion Russell Greenberg, percussion 2 Recording dates: 1 16 May 2010 2 8 June 2017 3 18 April 2013 4 5 5 October 2018 6 11 November 2017 Recording venues: 1 Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, New York, USA 2 Troutman Studios, New York, USA 3 Allegro Recordings, Burbank, California, USA 4 5 Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, New York, USA 6 Wellin Hall at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, USA Engineers: 1 Paul Howells 2 Ryan Carter 3 Matthew Snyder 4 5 Ryan Streber 6 Graham Espe Mastering: Ryan Streber Liner Notes: Stephan Hammel Cover based on untitled artwork by Heinz Göbel, from the collection of Martin Rummel 3 self into new material to be dissect- ral impression from variation to error. ed, recast and rendered new. Carter’s Carter has reconstructed a glitch. In- insights into the form of technologi- deed, the title of the piece refers to an cal mediation were not garnered from error message: the line is a numbered a distance. He is a programmer who line of code. has produced a substantial amount of electronic music. This output includes A note in the score tells us that “this A streaming clip stalls. The sound pieces involving novel electronic in- piece is inspired by an experience and image start, skip, and loop. A pro- struments and phone applications that watching a YouTube video that was gram freezes, spinning in place. A pat- mobilize the functionality and ubiq- not buffering properly, resulting in a tern dissolves, generating a network uity of the smartphone to involve the chopping and looping of short vid- of variants in its wake. In the compo- listener in the compositional process. eo segments.” He goes on to say that sitions assembled on this album, Ry- The pieces on this album, then, are “the material in too many arguments in an Carter attends to these rhyming in- metadiscourse: chamber works about line 17 is also manipulated by process- stances of technological breakdown, electronic sound. es akin to granular synthesis, with an among others. He mines their form affinity for glitches and unexpected for insight into the nature and extent too many arguments in line 17 is results.” The unexpected is not limited of the shaping effect that ever more Carter’s third string quartet and one to the improperly buffered Fortspin- pervasive and sophisticated technolo- of two on this album. Written for the nung and bent pitch. A glitch at mea- gy exerts on our ears and on our lives. JACK Quartet in 2010, the piece is a sure 90 is punctuated by the first vi- Tools mimic the agency we express study in meter and articulation. The olin getting up and walking to another when using them at the moment they performers are given a lexicon of ar- place in the performance space. fail, so it is no accident that to the ex- ticulations, including two types of tent that Carter’s focus is on technolo- saltando, four types of col legno, and When All Else Fails is a more recent gy it is also on failure. One is reminded five types of pizzicato (left hand, fin- composition, written in 2016–2017 for of Martin Heidegger’s well-known ob- gernail, and Bartók pizzicato in addi- the ensemble Yarn/Wire. It is scored servation about hammers, which es- tion to the standard variety). The first for two percussionists and two pia- cape into independence from the right two bars do not outline a subject so nists. Both pianos are prepared with hand at the moment they miss the much as set up a pattern. At the mo- towels and coins affixed to the strings nail and crush the left thumb. Howev- ment when that pattern threatens to at specified partials. The pianists are er, in those compositions that thema- become fully intelligible, the music also instructed to play harmonics in- tize breakdown, compositional agency stalls. A momentary cross rhythm sig- side the piano. The percussionists is not subverted so much as re-orient- nals a break in the flow. Harmonics play triangle, woodblock, claves and ed. The stuff of breakdown resolves it- and microtonal inflections shift the au- tuned gongs, but much of the determi- 4 native timbre of the piece results from score, he categorizes sounds into four theme of this piano solo is the mis- the vibraphone, alternately sound- categories that span the range from take. He writes that his primary in- ed with motor, rasping stick, Mole- fully determinate to utterly indetermi- strument is the piano and that the lim- skin-wrapped Becker blue mallet, and nate. Carter’s sounds can either be its of his technical proficiency do not bow. The relatively simple pitch idiom continuous, periodic, gestural or ran- diminish his joy in playing. The motiv- allows for timbre to articulate the for- dom. While the first two categories ic core is the gesture in the opening mal construction. The result in a son- are more or less straightforward, the bars. The mistakes that Carter him- ic landscape downstream from those third and fourth present an interesting self made while attempting to play it of John Cage and Henry Cowell. Put contrast between a sound that “avoids form the process through which the in mind of American experimentalists, any regular pulse but expresses a de- development occurs. Written in the the listener could well associate the liberate intent” and a sonic moment of same year as too many arguments in haunted and hollow sound world here chaos. At times, chaos is marked in the line 17, the pianist’s mistake appears with the bracing experience the Ameri- score: Carter write a letter Z through as a glitch in the flesh. The material can experiment was undergoing at the a note stem when he wants to indicate often stalls, repeats or doubles back. time this piece was written. However, that a pitch sustains a “random tremo- Glitches here, though, are altogether the mood is not funereal. The at times lo.” The players are pressed to explore humane. Pauses and repeated notes asynchronous voices are brought to- the point of indistinction between for- are warmly ponderous. In a piece in gether in stillness near the close with mal intent and material consequence. which movement in generated by re- a tempo marking that reads: “Taking a Large sections of the piece never al- constructed mistakes, an interesting deep breath.” low the layers of sound to align, allow- dialectic opens up between compos- ing the overall result to be an emergent er – who, by his own admission, can- grip, from 2006, is Carter’s second property of developing relationships not play the piece – and performer, string quartet, and the earliest compo- between the instrumentalists. Each, who, given the challenges of the score, sition on the album. The composition however, has a grip on what they play. is likely to makes mistakes. The score predates both Carter’s move to New The form that emerges is not one that indicates those moments that are suf- York City and the new era in American fails, but one that routinely breaks in- ficiently structural as to be least able life that began in 2008. It was com- to delightful, even momentarily dance- to withstand mistakes. missioned by the Calder Quartet and able moments. in 2007 won the Suzanne and Lee A change occurs roughly midway Ettelson Composer’s Award. Earliest, A developed variation of grip’s opti- through. The pace slows and gestures it is also the most optimistic. The piece mism can be heard in Errata, for solo are played in rhythmic freedom. The is an experiment in the rhythmic inter- piano from 2010. If the string quartet mistake prone pianist that is the im- action between voices, or what Carter pressed the middle space between plied subject of the piece has changed calls “layers of sound.” In a note in the musical intent and musical action, the tack. One is given the impression that 5 the implied pianist is getting a grip the clear-eyed forward drive of the ac- here to feature fixed media and live on what is to be played by practicing companiment. The result is repeated signal processing. That fact might sev- slowly and gradually speeding back sinking and sharpening of the pitch. A er its aesthetic from the other works up. The damper pedal is held during C natural might succeed a C a quarter in this collection, but the electronics in this section. As the piece speeds back tone flat, or a D natural might be fol- this composition are a reimagining of up and finds its footing, the pedal is lowed by a D a quarter tone sharp, all an acoustic phenomenon peculiar to slowly released. If the tempo returns in very quick note values.

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