THE EAR AND THE EYE

During two years of artistic research at the Hochschüle für Musik in Basel, artistic director Mara Winter completed a cycle of color-informed microtonal pieces for four Renaissance flutes. The resulting collection of music, The Ear And The Eye, uses the acoustic palette of the 16th century traverso consort to explore personal and historical connections between color perception and microtonality.

 

"At the start of the research, I collected historical descriptions of the relationship between color, number, and harmony, using these sources to search for new approaches to elaborating pitch relationships in my own compositions. 

 

In the case of some historical treatises, I could observe that not only were proportionally-mixed, stable colors compared to the creation of the musical consonances, but there was also an acknowledgement of the limitless unquantifiable colors and intervals occurring dynamically in nature and harmony. 

 

I used a selection of this historical material to inspire new working methods for approaching the performance of the chromatic and enharmonic repertoire of the 16th century, as well as improved understandings of performance techniques in the Renaissance traverso consort. 

 

Through the techniques we developed while performing these pieces, we felt that we were able to expand the expressive range of the traverso consort when interpreting original 16th century polyphony. Our expressive language became a shared dialect within the ensemble, with unique associations and triggers."

 

Notes on the pieces

 

1. Incarnadine, A=415hz, distorted by shades of red. 

incarnate is for a spirit or a concept to embody human form

incarnadine refers to the bright crimson or pinkish-red color of human flesh

 

The sounds in this composition use Aristotle's concept of color which is perceived through a 'translucent medium' as a departure point for creating a harmonic atmosphere in which subtle, flexible intervals stain our perception of pitch. The flutes create a sound which is unstable, moving constantly--quite like the mannerisms of something ephemeral momentarily incarnated within the imperfect human form, before escaping from our grasp once again. 

 

2. Hyacinth, variations on F=333hz, washed out by the shade of blue. 

The music in Hyacinth moves through successive "windows", during which surfaces appear within the surrounding colored atmosphere. These shapes are all generated inside of the same encompassing sonic medium. The light blue "window" through which the listener gazes remains constant, and many transformations occur inside of it. 

 

The soundscape is built from the foundational consonance between F and C. Hyacinth meditates on the identity of these two sounds.

 

3. Smaragd, the brilliant space between a perfect 4:3 ratio, visualized by the color green. We attempted the maximum amount of textural depth in the music through the use of combination tones, beatings, glissandi and multiphonics. 

 

The word 'smaragd' comes from the latin name 'smaragdus', meaning emerald, considered to be the most spiritually potent shade of green in the 16th century. In the piece, Smaragd, the musical ratio 4:3 forms an emerald container, inside of which diverse surfaces interact with each other, materialized by strategies of shading and sculpting in the sound of the flutes. The upper ceiling of the harmonic architecture, 'G', represents light, heavenly energy. The lower note, 'D' embodies its dark, earthly counterpart. When combined, their force "is above all force". This interval is personified in its pure form in the last moments of Smaragd.