Through imaginary landscapes (2021)

commissioned by the Darmstadt Summer Courses and the Norwegian Composers’ Fund

premiered by Jennifer Torrence, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen and Ensemble Adapter in Darmstadt, 06.08.2021.

Duration: ca. ‘35

I really enjoyed this exercise in pure overload… As a testament to overwhelming ambition in an extremely condensed format it was a brilliant end to a very, very exciting show.

Max Erwin, Tempo, 76(299)

About the work:

“Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum.”

W. J. T. Mitchell

In 1939 John Cage composed the first of his Imaginary Landscapes (for cymbal, prepared piano and two record players) transforming a playback device into a musical instrument by manipulating test tone records.

In this series of works Cage continues to incorporate technology alongside traditional percussion instruments, experimenting with radios and object amplification as well as incorporating other music through the use of mashed-up records.

At the same time, this series of Landscapes highlights a shift in Cage’s compositional focus: from concentrating on what’s inside the frame to creating frameworks from which the music can arise – a shift culminating in Imaginary Landscape No. 5 from 1952, where he leaves the frame entirely open for other music to be placed, written only a few months before the framed ‘silence’ of 4’33’’.

My work continues to explore these concepts of landscape and technology, sampling and remixing both sounds and ideas from Cage’s Imaginary Landscapes using today’s technology alongside record players and FM radios.

In the center of this exploration we find the listener soloist. Functioning as an avatar with binaural headphones in her ears we follow her footsteps through real, virtual, historical and imaginary landscapes.