“Music for Bass Clarinet and Tape” by Cort Lippe

Title:

Music for Bass Clarinet and Tape

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Artist Statement:

Composed by Cort Lippe, performed by Harry Sparnaay

Music for Bass Clarinet and Tape (1986) was commissioned for the 1986 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) by the Dutch Ministry of Culture. The piece was written for the bass clarinetist Harry Sparnaay, who premiered it at the ICMC in The Hague in October, 1986. The tape part was created at CEMAMu in Paris, using the graphics-oriented computer-music system UPIC designed by Iannis Xenakis. The digital mix of the final tape version was done at the Stichting Klankschap and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam.

Sound material for the tape was limited to approximate the confines one normally associates with individual acoustic instruments in order to create a relationship with parity between the tape and the bass clarinet. Although contrasts and similarities between the tape and the clarinet are evident, musically a kind of intimacy was sought – not unlike our present-day ‘sense’ of intimacy with machines in general.

There are five major sections in the work. The opening dialogue between tape and instruments is followed by a section in which the tape part dominates. This, in turn, gives way to a bass clarinet solo, while in the fourth section the tape part is dominated by the clarinet. In the final section the tape and instrument are again somewhat equal – reminiscent of the opening section. Music for Bass Clarinet and Tape was a prize-winning composition in the 1987 15th Annual Electronic Music Competition of Bourges, France.