“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect[s] decay.” – Ernst Fischer
"Decomposition study" is a collaborative process initiated by the artist Ed Williams. The instrument featured here is an arciorgano, a special microtonal organo di legno with two manually operated bellows and 36-key octaves across two manuals, constructed according to Nicola Vicentino’s designs from 1555. The notes of the music, written according to the rules of canonic contrapunto alla mente, are passed between two organists while four other musicians disrupt and amplify the organ’s airflow, acting similarly to cellular enzymes in decaying organisms during the decompositional process called autolysis. The music is decomposed as it is played, re-composed as it is heard.
"Decomposition study" est un processus collaboratif composé par le musicien Ed Williams. L’instrument employé ici est un arciorgano ; un organo di legno microtonal avec deux soufflets que l’on opère manuellement, ainsi que des octaves de 36 touches à travers deux claviers, construit selon les dessins de 1555 de Nicola Vicentino. Les notes de la musique, écrite selon les règles de contrapunto alla mente en canon, sont passées entre les deux joueurs de l’orgue pendant que quatre autres musiciens perturbent et amplifient l’écoulement d’air de l’orgue. Ainsi, ils agissent de manière analogue aux enzymes cellulaires à l’intérieur des organismes en décomposition pendant le processus nommé autolyse. La musique se décompose dans le jeu, se ré-compose dans l’écoute.
He taught me the basics of organ playing on the local village church organ when I was a teenager.
When I started university I would return to this same instrument in the summer holidays and experiment pulling out stops only partially and combining different registers. I liked it particularly when the entire case would shake from all the 16’ pipes sounding simultaneously.
Aside from this and an attempt at recreating these effects at the experimental and early music festival Bach to the Future in Providence, RI, USA I didn’t have much to do with organs until I took up studies at the Hochschule für Musik, Basel, and discovered the Arciorgano there, the only extant instrument of its kind built in 2016 according to Nicola Vicentino’s designs from 1555. This instrument provided an open door back into the sound world of the organ in which I could push my experimentation even further into the realms of microtonality and distortion.
The first piece I composed using this instrument was a way for me to experiment with decomposition as a generative, compositional process. At the invitation of Caspar Johannes Walter, I had the opportunity to write a second decomposition study to incorporate the timbre-bending capabilities of the Experimentalmodul at St. Martinskirche, Kassel.
Like anything I will do with the organ, this project is also a way of dealing with grieving for my late father whose ghost will always be standing behind me giving harmonic support to my dissonances." Ed Williams - Dec 2022
"Decomposition study" : CD's publication on Insub Records
Performed and recorded on March 28, 2022 at the Hochschule für Musik, Basel, on the arciorgano and amplified through a 6-faced “Cube” speaker, with the 'Enzymes' Abel Fazekas, Noah Rosen, Miriam Paschetta and Ed Williams & , as organ players, Christoph Schiller and Anna-Kaisa Meklin
& to look at and listen to: teaser 1 and teaser 3
*IX-0-XI*
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