Gunnar Geisse: TRIPTYCH

Gimi's Piano Concerto

Why should one still compose a piano concerto in 2020? Hasn't this leading genre of absolute music exhausted itself decades ago? Gunnar Geisse's piano concerto, which has its premiere on this CD, definitely adds a new facet to the genre, which is not certain whether it will continue the genre or break it. Although the piano is heard as a solo instrument and is accompanied by a variety of orchestral instruments, only one instrument was actually played on this recording, which again is not a piano but an electric guitar.

I.

In the last five years, Gunnar Geisse has developed a program that not only allows him to play virtual orchestral instruments with the electric guitar and use it to generate complex sound structures in real time, but also to improvise with these musical structures. So far, Geisse has described his improvisations as pieces for “laptop guitar”, but in principle it is a universal improvisation system that can be played with any musical instrument. In this respect, he now also speaks of Gimi, One General Improvisational Meta Instrument, when talking about the program. The starting point of these improvisational pieces is always a spectral analysis of the digitized electric guitar signal. MIDI data is obtained from this, with which virtual instruments and software samplers can be controlled, played, modulated and transformed. What is actually spectacular about this improvisation system is that and how the otherwise separate processes of programming, composing and improvising merge here.

In general, three different work phases can be distinguished in which Geisse creates his improvisational pieces. First of all, a conceptual idea - in the present case that the music develops in the form of a piano concerto - is brought into a sequence of "scenes" that can be controlled one after the other on the computer using shortcuts. Each individual scene consists of a pre-selection of virtual instruments and algorithms with which these instruments can be played and manipulated in real time. These scenes are therefore a kind of improvisation templates that are programmed in such a way that they can be used to realize very specific musical ideas.

For example, the second movement of the piano concerto begins with spectral sounds. In a series of experiments, Geisse looked for ways to create the impression of spectral sounds with the help of algorithms that processed his "midized" guitar sounds. Finally, this scene was prestructured in such a way that individual guitar tones simultaneously trigger a string, a woodwind, and a horn quartet, with the individual instruments in the quartets starting with a slight time delay and beginning to interfere "spectrally". This first phase of experimentation, in which the improvisation templates are designed, does not only concern the trying out of sounds that result when groups of virtual instruments are controlled with a guitar and their signals are further processed algorithmically, but the scenes also retrospectively influence the guitar playing itself. Not every free improvisation fits every scene, but there are very specific playing techniques, pitches, chords and runs with which you can generate and vary the desired sound effects.

In principle, the piano concerto could also be performed by another instrument such as a saxophone or a violin. The tones played by such instruments would also be automatically converted into MIDI data via spectral analysis and could then control individual scenes like Geisse's guitar. However, the soloists would first have to practice improvising with their instruments in order to develop instrument-specific playing styles for the improvisation templates.

Each individual scene is therefore defined by a specific parameter setting that is called up via shortcut during a concert. These individual scenes are finally assembled into a chronological sequence of scenes that can be imagined as a digital improvisational score. In the individual scenes it is specifically determined which virtual instruments are used and which playing techniques are used; also here z. For example, the pitch selection can be narrowed and the volume ratios in the instrumental groups can be defined. It is also possible to determine whether instruments are controlled microtonally or tempered, which plugins are activated in the scene and whether musical processes should be random. For the live manipulations, Geisse also uses a MIDI controller (a small box with regulators, switches and a joystick) in order to gain further options to manipulate the MIDI signals haptically in addition to the electric guitar. It is often the case that individual controls and switches have multiple assignments and accordingly control more than one parameter at the same time, which can have the effect that the entire improvisation system behaves like a black box from time to time and becomes unpredictable. Paradoxically, the MIDI controller brings a piece of uncontrollability to improvisation. But precisely because of these moments of surprise, the system forces the musician who improvises with it to react spontaneously to unexpected sound events. In their radical nature, Geisse's improvisations have more to do with free jazz than with jazz standards.

Each scene is not through-composed, but defines a scope for interpretation with a set of parameter settings and algorithms, in which specific musical ideas can be realized. In principle, an infinite number of improvisations could be realized with the digital pre-composition of the piano concerto created by Geisse. In the run-up to the recording of the present CD recording, there were also a large number of such improvised performances, except that they took place in the studio and not on the stage. In a final step, particularly successful passages were selected from this large number of piano concerto versions, edited and assembled into a final version.

Ultimately, three levels of innovation can be distinguished in CD recording: the digital pre-composition level, in which the corresponding improvisation templates were programmed for a conceptual sequence of musical ideas, an improvisation level in which different versions of the piano concerto were created, and finally a production level in which the most successful studio improvisations were cut together for the present CD version.

II.

The Piano Concerto was composed as standard in three movements, but Geisse later discarded the last one. Essentially a homage to the genre, the first movement contains allusions to the piano concertos of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Schumann and Chopin, though these are primarily imitations of characteristic piano runs on which pianists can display their virtuosity. These runs have a special position in Geisse's piano concerto in that, exceptionally, they did not arise from live improvisation, but were created in advance in the form of MIDI data. These then control the virtual piano during the concert and retain their quotation character as fixed MIDI files. At the beginning of track 02 you can also hear a real Rachmaninoff quote from his 3rd Piano Concerto.

The second movement, on the other hand, develops the idea of ​​the piano concerto without references to classical music and works mainly with those avant-garde means that expanded the playing possibilities of the piano and expanded them in the 20th century. You can now hear, for example, echoes of Conlon Nancarrow's unplayably fast compositions for self-playing piano, which today have escalated to the Black MIDI style (track 05, 02:23), a pedal steel guitar (track 05, 03:24), microtonal Sound fields (track 06, 00:50) and electronically distorted piano sounds (track 06, 01:00). From the first to the second part, the concert thus completes a music-historical transition, namely from a postmodern aesthetic that plays with the sounds of tradition to a contemporary aesthetic in which the entire musical universe is available as a medium of composition and improvisation. But if this break, which is actually taking place in music history, becomes the overarching theme of the piano concerto, then a third movement cannot be added to it, as was usually the case with the classical piano concerto - without weakening this statement. Presumably, the improvisational elaboration of Geisse's Piano Concerto exceeded the given large format in a similar way as was the case with Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony". In the first two movements of this symphony, Schubert had elevated the idea of ​​musical beauty to the sublime with an intensity never heard before, while the third and fourth movements could only fall away. Finally, Geisse included it on his CD instead of a third piano concerto movement rhythm changes added a completely independent work in the form of a sonata for solo laptop guitar.

III.

What kind of work did Gunnar Geisse actually create with his piano concerto? The first impression may be that this is a hybrid of electronic, improvised and virtually recorded acoustic music. In fact, this concert is far more than just a synthesis of existing musical practices, but something qualitatively new is created that has not existed in this form before. In a live improvisation, a single musician is able to improvise with all conceivable musical structures, whereby this, since it is performed using the classical genre of the piano concerto, seems like a symbol of a digital music culture in which the literal music culture that has been overcome remains suspended.

Independent musical improvisation cultures developed as early as the 20th century with jazz and improvised music, and of course jazz elements were deliberately included in contemporary classical music and live electronics were used in New Music concerts . Until now, however, it was unthinkable for a musician to use the medium of samples to conceive large orchestral works for any ensemble formation and perform them as live improvisations with just a guitar, a laptop and two good loudspeakers. Ultimately, there is a systematic dissolution of the boundaries between experimental, composed and improvised music as well as between electronic and acoustic music, since the entire composition process does not take place in the medium of notation, as has been the case up to now, but in the medium of samples, in which the aesthetic decisions are made as in an oral music culture, are hit directly with the ear. Working with Geisse's improvisation system is a bit similar to "composing at the piano", in which classical composers came up with new musical ideas by improvising on their instrument, which they then wrote down - except that this improvisation phase now extends to all sorts of virtual ones Instruments can extend at the same time.

With his piano concerto, Gunnar Geisse has for the first time used the technical possibilities of Gimi presented in its entire spectrum and, with this prototype, is likely to influence above all a younger generation of musicians and composers who are interested in improvising with machines. But Geisse's Piano Concerto is not just a technological innovation, insofar as this work could only have been created by such a genuine musician as he was. Geisse has improvised with jazz bands, performed as a guitarist in contemporary music ensembles, played as a soloist in large orchestras and is very familiar with the worlds of sound, compositional techniques and styles throughout the history of music. It is this extensive musical knowledge that allows him to actually improvise in an original way with the musical universe that is available to everyone in a digital music culture.

Harry Lehman