Untitled Document

Andrew Stones - Digital projections for Joanna MacGregor (piano) 1999-2000

A series of interactive digital animations to accompany live piano recital

Pianist's Hands: based on animation used in the digital projections copyright©Andrew Stones 1999

The projections for Sound Circus are Macintosh-based sequences presented directly from a computer. Since the duration of most parts of the performance is never exactly the same a degree of interactivity is built in so that the sequences can be advanced according to cues in the music, using computer keystrokes. The music is selected and performed by Joanna Macgregor:

William Byrd Hughe Ashton's Ground
Tom Ades Traced Overhead
John Dowland Forlorn Hope Fancy
Harrison Birtwistle Harrison's Clocks 3,4 & 5
JS Bach Contrapunctus II from `The Art of Fugue'
Conlon Nancarrow Player Piano Studies
INTERVAL
Matthew Fairclough Altered Ends, Revealed Beginnings
Somei Satoh Incarnation II
John Cage Water Music
Joanna MacGregor New Work
Jonathan Harvey Tombeau de Messiaen
JS Bach Allemande from Partita no.4 in D major

The music in the programme references a range of cultural information: not only in the metaphors deliberately invoked by a given composer, but also by virtue of the wider history concurrent with the composer's life. For example, the lifetime of J.S. Bach encompasses the establishment of Fahrenheit (c.1714) and Centigrade (c.1742) temperature scales: an enduring scientific counterpoint which reflects the contrapuntal preoccupations in the composer's music.

Playerpiano Studies in rehearsal at Bridgewater Hall Manchester 1998

The projections for the the first half of the programme centre on various kinds of measurement and quantification; a formal theme which links the music to a diverse range of ideas. Some of these connections are fairly direct: Harrison Birtwistle references John Harrison's struggle to calculate longitude with machines. Less clear but equally fascinating is the unresolved relationship between mathematics, patterning, and the kind of human emotional response associated with music: how can Nancarrow's mechanistic rigour give rise to 'moving' music ?

These first sequences suggest a world view typified by linear progression; great journeys; the grand narratives of history framed from singular points of view. After the interval there is a shift in emphasis, a move towards the notion of the network or matrix, reflecting the fragmentation of monolithic cultural structures at the close of the 20th century, and the creation of new generalities: a new 'nature' inclusive of human intervention; new kinds of 'transcendence' hinted at in virtual reality, digital technologies and the internet.

Combining these broad themes with specific ideas raised in the music, the projections for the second half begin by proposing the liberation of the piano from its own architecture. Matthew Fairclough's work literally separates the hammer 'attack' (source of any given note) from resonant or 'decaying' sound, whilst the following Satoh work metaphorically alludes to rebirth in a new form: the projections for both of these works are generated from parts and diagrams of a Steinway grand piano pushed through various processes of visual transformation.

Piano Matrix animation generated from diagrams of a Steinway Grand Piano
From projection to accompany Somei Satoh - Incarnation II

John Cage's deconstruction of traditional forms and his introduction of physical modifications to the piano are well known: according to his instructions Water Music is here accompanied by his own score, although arranged as a scroll for presentation on the large screen.

In the context of the preceding programme, Bach's Allemande (a slow dance) has a poignancy beyond a nostalgia, and the final projection sequence aims to draw this out with a highly contemporary setting. A series of images show a girl standing in the centre of a shopping mall, yet cut off from the outside world by a virtual reality headset. She is posed as though dancing, but without a partner.

42nd Street in rehearsal at Bridgewater Hall Manchester 1998

Collaboration and performance details