Search - David Tudor Bandoneon! (a combine) on DVD

Magical moments

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 07/10/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of those magical moments when things come together, almost the last gasp of the post war avant-garde.

We have David Tudor steeping out of his musician realization interpreter role;He steps out as creator this time in the realization of his own work,Recall, David Tudor was it; the pianist, organist for the repertoire, or Cage, Cardew, Feldman, Wolff, Brown, Cross, Boulez as well; prior to it all.

With admirable cooperative associations and grants from Bell Laboratories, "Bandoneon"(a combine) was where Tudor literally played,inhabited,shaped the acoustics with the 69th Street Armory in New York City;
This is in the late Sixties here when electronics was still in a state of infancy in the amount the gradations of sophisticated concepts creators brought to the medium. Electronics itself still was very primitive, where things frequently burned, and you had elaborate lumbered, oefish set-ups, that did not really produce a configuration of complex associations;, Things we take for granted today, with computer interfacing that can occur literally at multiplicities of (levels), and (planes),there are no layerings happening, things just enter whether intended or not.

Tudor and the Bell Labs Techs keep a tight control over the proceedings, often going over to Tudor to talk, whisper, much like they do as NASA Space Labs, when a missle is in space. The Kennedy-Era glasses, black suites, thin ties give this ambiance you cannot help but nooice, and you forever make this part of the avant-garde at that time. It was generally a fairly conservative cadre working together as much we see today. No pretensions of "GREAT ART", a Utopianism or engaged in binary conceptualizations, like how does something get represented.
The bandoneon, a South American instrument,Accordeon family; Tudor had loved on his tour there with the Merce Cunningham Dance Troup;Tudor brought the tropu out to late night clubs to hear tangos;The instrument was a gift from composer Mauricio Kagel, who had composed a work which Tudor played.
He then fell in love with the performance of it,and the possibilities in hooking it up to d electronics. Tudor makes and re-does, re-conceptualizes much of his own components, as Gordon Mumma,(also a wonderful composer) speaks very well on this DVD,of what is going on, and where the piece came from;of course this is many years later in reflection, as the producers speak well, Julie Martin, and Billy Kluver.

Contact microphones are placed within the bandoneon, there are also other triggers for sound in what looks like silly revolving playful-like objects, that pre-date Star Wars.There are also transducers utilized where electronics signals can be sent to here moving objects, circling round the center performance area; These are simple receptors, controlled on joy sticks by David Behrman among others; These rolling modules interact with the over all overtone"galaxies" happening within the space;It is really at times feedback put at the precipice;where you cannot push it further, so it eternally emits and re-transmits itself; if desired feedbacks it can create loops of sounds,walls of sounds really gorgeous overtones;

The overall effect is like one massive loud,overwhelming uninterrupted wall of sound;I guess you literally had to be there to experience the scale, the sonic dimensions of all this;This DVD gives you a very good documentary experience however;, you never really here the distinct wind timbres of the bandoneon,like its clarinet, flute and bassoons that the instrument is capable. Tudor uses more the "Wind" constitution" of the instrument,you see him simple working the bellows contraction, In-Out;pressing down clusters of buttons;There are two separate keyboards,one Right the other Left,These interact with each other ,when the bellows move creating these impacted clusters incredibly dissonant wall. These clusters then are amplified in a grand way, throughout the space."