andrew infanti 

All the works have been recorded live.

Nocturne (1981) pour piano et sons de synthèse

Mâche’s first major solo piano piece, Nocturne (composed in 1981) pushes the boundaries of his musical obsession with multiplicity. In the work, a single melody becomes a hydra of relationships as it is presented simultaneously in multiple tempi, with the accompaniment of digital sounds created at Iannis Xenakis’ Studio UPIC. The electronic sounds often play in unison with the piano and defocus the timbre of the instrument, creating what has been called a type of “sonic astigmatism.”

Like Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for player piano, Nocturne explores “temporal dissonance” by using rhythmic ratios not based exclusively on integers. Mâche uses the gradually widening drift throughout the piece to assign a variety of “characters” — from grim to frivolous — to the resulting music, like Bach’s set of “expanding” canons in his Goldberg Variations.

Mésarthim * (1987) pour deux pianos, quatre mains

The title refers to a star which, in ancient times, was the closest in the constellation Aries to the vernal equinox. (Precession, the 26,000 year wobble of the Earth’s axis, has since shifted the equinox westward to Pisces.)

Two hundred and four light-years from earth, Mesarthim is in fact a double star ; its two components, of nearly equal brightness, are an easily separable 8 seconds of arc apart and have been known since 1664. Mâche’s two-piano medium clearly illustrates the dual organization of the star, suggesting its astronomical discrepancy to the earth-bound viewer/listener through pulsations with a ratio of 22:23.

Styx (1984) and Léthè (1985), pour deux pianos, huit mains

Mâche’s works for the unusual medium of 2 pianos, eight hands refer to the sinister rivers in the underworld of Greek mythology which separated Hades from the realm of the living.

Styx — The entrance to the underworld. It was often described as the boundary river over which the agèd ferryman Charon transported the shades of the dead. (The river was personified as a daughter of the Titan Oceanus.)

The music of Styx explores the abysmal resonances of the piano’s lowest note. The entire work forms a series of turbulent departures from and returns to this spectrally rich sound.

Léthè — The underworld river of oblivion. The spirits of the dead drank from its waters to forget the sorrows of their earthly life before entering Elysium. Plato alludes to the heady inebriation of this sensation in the Republic (X, 621, transl. Allan Bloom) :

“It was necessary for all to drink a certain measure of the water, but those who were not saved by prudence drank more than the measure. As he drank, each forgot everything.”

Mâche’s Léthè displays processes of musical erosion, dissolving each section into a feathering multiplicity rather than brutal insistence as in Styx. The music in Léthè seems to drunkenly decompose itself until it is only a wandering echo of a melody.

Sopiana (1980) pour flûte, piano et sons enregistrés

Sopiana is a work illustrating a personal approach of the composer which tends to erase the distinction between “raw” sounds and musical sounds, between nature and culture. Not only are the birdsongs fastidiously transcribed, such that the instrumentalists might synchronize with them, but these same songs are physically present (through the loudspeakers) in all their virtuosity, with their silences and their inexhaustible outpourings. A Malaysian Shama performs long complex solos, providing both melody and accompaniments for itself, while a Icterine Warbler and a Marsh Warbler juggle unchanging sonic objects, infinitely combining number, timbre, register, and tempo.

The virtuosity required of the human performers is on par with that of their models, and puts to use in particular the modern techniques of the flute… Sopiana was composed for the 1980 Summer courses in Pécs, Hungary. The title is derived from the ancient Roman name of that city.

Temes Nevinbür ** (1973) pour deux pianos, deux percussionnistes et sons enregistrés

The work takes its inspiration from Melanesian cult objects which present a human artifact, like a skull, mounted and covered with clay. Although the work does not make use of any Melanesian sound sources, it borrows that culture’s concept of liminal art — a natural object receives an aesthetic “coating” which nonetheless does not refute the rawness of its source.

Mâche engages the performers in a series of sonic imitations which range from intuitive improvisations, via instrumental dialogues and composed representations, to passages of precise synchrony with the recorded sounds. The music is layered on to the natural sounds without privileging either. Animal sounds form the majority of the material used, and Mâche has selected a rather unconventional crew. He describes this step in an interview :

“ I’ve used frogs of several species to expand the variety of sounds. And still rarer sounds. On the tape that I’ve used for Temes Nevinbür one can hear, near the end, very loud high-pitched sounds with glissandi against a background of scratching. Actually, this scratching is produced by shrimp that gathered around a submerged microphone and clawed it while we were recording whales over twenty meters long making these incredible shrieks! One also hears on this tape a drugged starling – tiny squeaks with a flapping of wings; a boar courting a sow – these sounds have none of the repulsive character one would think they would have, and they present a significant rhythmic interest. A llama, a wild pig as well… ”

Mâche opens this world of sound toward the human, by treating language as a model. In Temes Nevinbür, Mâche uses the rich percussion of the Xhosa language with its nuanced clicks. The non-organic and elemental also enter the field, with the sounds of falling rain and the surging sea.