Exploring an Instrument’s Diversity: The Creative Implications of the Recorder Performer’s Choice of Instrument Volume I Carmen Liliana Troncoso Cáceres PhD University of York Music September 2019 2 Abstract Recorder performers constantly face the challenge of selecting particular instrumental models for performance, subject to repertoire, musical styles, and performance contexts. The recorder did not evolve continuously and linearly. The multiple available models are surprisingly dissimilar and often somewhat anachronistic in character, juxtaposing elements of design from different periods of European musical history. This has generated the particular and peculiar situation of the recorder performer: the process of searching for and choosing an instrument for a specific performance is a complex aspect of performance preparation. This research examines the variables that arise in these processes, exploring the criteria for instrumental selection and, within the context of music making, the creative possibilities afforded by those choices. The study combines research into recorder models and their origins, use and associated contexts with research through performance. The relationship between performer and instrument, with its cultural and personal complexities, is significant here. As an ‘everyday object’, rooted in daily practice and personal artistic expression over many years, the instrument becomes part of the performer’s identity. In my case, as a Chilean performing an instrument that, despite its wider connection to a range of other duct flutes across the world, belongs to European culture, this sense of identity is complex and therefore examined in my processes of selecting and working creatively with the instruments. This doctorate portfolio comprises six performance projects, encompassing new, collaboratively developed works for a variety of recorders, presented through performance and recorded media. The artistic outputs are accompanied by critical commentary, examining how the creative work addresses core questions that arise from the situation outlined above. In addition to performance, most of the projects resulted in original scores that invite other performers to explore the instrumental diversity of the recorder, encouraging a renewed, creative perspective. 3 Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 2 Contents ............................................................................................................................. 3 List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... 7 List of Accompanying (Audio and Video) Material ............................................................... 13 List of Musical Examples ................................................................................................ 13 List of Outputs ............................................................................................................... 16 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. 17 Author’s Declaration .......................................................................................................... 18 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 19 Author’s background ...................................................................................................... 21 The Recorder Context .................................................................................................... 22 The Research Topic and its Aims ..................................................................................... 23 Methodologies .............................................................................................................. 25 The Practice Research .................................................................................................... 26 Strategies ...................................................................................................................... 29 List of Recorders Utilised ................................................................................................ 31 Integrated Research Components ................................................................................... 34 How to Navigate this Thesis ........................................................................................... 34 Prelude ............................................................................................................................. 36 Chapter 1. Searching for Alto Recorders to Meet the Piano (2015 – 2016) ........................... 38 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 39 The Contemporary Context of Recorder with Piano ........................................................ 45 The Choice of Repertoire ................................................................................................ 47 Searching for Recorders to Meet the Piano ..................................................................... 50 The Search for (and Choice of) Recorders to Play John Frith’s Sonata ............................... 54 First Movement: ‘Moderato’ ............................................................................................... 56 Second Movement: ‘Andante Mysterioso’ ......................................................................... 60 4 Third Movement: ‘Rondo: Moderato’ ................................................................................. 63 The Modern Alto Recorder in the Context of Poulenc’s Sonata for Flute and Piano .......... 70 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 2. Beyond the Acoustic Environment (2016 – 2017): Drilling into the Process of Metamorphosis – The Electroacoustic Modern Alto Recorder (ER) ...................................... 74 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 76 Collaborative Work as an Exploratory Method. .................................................................. 77 Beyond the Acoustic Environment ...................................................................................... 78 The Creative Potential of the Term ‘Recorder’ ................................................................... 83 Beyond the Acoustic Environment, Collaborative Project 1: RECORDARI ............................. 90 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 92 Previous Work: Exploring Transformational Processes .................................................... 93 Organising the Old and New Works ................................................................................ 94 I-Medieval Repertoire ......................................................................................................... 94 II-New Pieces for the Electroacoustic Recorder and Electronics ........................................ 98 III-Re-contextualisation of Early Works. .............................................................................. 99 Recordari: A Cycle in Seven Movements ........................................................................ 100 The Episodes of RECORDARI ......................................................................................... 101 Conclusion: ‘One Long Narrative of Occurrences’ .......................................................... 114 Beyond the Acoustic Environment, Collaborative Project 2: .............................................. 117 Recordeur: One Who Retells ............................................................................................ 117 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 118 The Creative Process .................................................................................................... 119 Exploration of the electroacoustic Modern Alto Recorder: [Early] Recordeur I-II-III. ....... 119 Generating [Final] Recordeur I-II ....................................................................................... 120 Evocation of Medieval Sonorities within Electroacoustic Works ...................................... 121 An Audiovisual Approach ............................................................................................. 122 A Composite Voice ....................................................................................................... 124 Chapter 3. MACROFISTULUS (2016 – 2017): The Küng ‘Classica’ Contrabass Recorder ........ 125 The Instrumental Context............................................................................................. 127 5 Sonic Exploration of the Contrabass Recorder ................................................................. 132 ‘Resisting’ the Instrument ................................................................................................. 137 Collaboration: Interacting, Integrating .......................................................................... 139 Consolidating Macrofistulus ........................................................................................