MULTIPLE VOICE

In Multiple Voice, the BL!NDMAN SAXOPHONE QUARTET offers an intense combination of contemporary music and medieval polyphony. By fading new and old music into one another, centuries become relative and consciousness of historical time is cancelled out. Thanks to the use of overdubbing (or electronic spatialisation in the live version), the quartet multiplies the four voices into an impressive carpet of sound, that make an Ockeghem and a Josquin sound as metropolitan as Harvey’s music: modern and sacral at the same time. Add the specific character of the saxophones to that very same sacrality, and one could hear Josquin’s moving Déploration de Joannes Okeghem almost sound like genuine blues.

compositional techniques

Contemporary works have always reflected age-old compositional techniques. The organum technique used by Leoninus and Perotinus, in which the voices develop in parallel, the 13th-century hocket technique in which the melodic lines is divided between several instruments, and also the imitation canon which, literal or not, repeats themes several times.
Palindrome is a pure hocket piece, while Ricercare Una melodia evolves from a literal canon to a canon by augmentation. Organum refers to Leoninus’s and Perotinus’s Notre Dame School, while Four2 takes the horizontal thinking of 15th-century polyphony to the extreme.

tracklist

tracklist

Leoninus, 1160-1180, Viderunt Omnes (Part I) – organum, 4 sax (1’48)

Perotinus, 1170-1220, Viderunt Omnes (Part I) – organum, 24 sax (3’45)

Johannes Ockeghem, c 1410 -1497, Deo Gratias – canon, 36 sax (5’52)

Thierry De Mey, 1984, Palindrome – hoquetus, 8 sax (6’22)

Pierre de la Rue, c 1460-1518, Myn hert altyt heeft verlanghen – canon, 4 sax (1’59)

Anonymous, 13th century, Motets CII & CIII – hoquetus, 4 sax (2’10)

Dominique Phinot, 1510-1556, Adieu Loyse – canon, 8 sax (1’19)

John Cage, 1990, Four2 – polyphony with aleatoric time shifting, 20 sax (6’53)

Johannes Ciconia, 1370-1411, Le Ray au Soleyl – puzzle canon, 4 sax (1’56)

Johannes Mouton, 1458-1522, Salve, Mater Salvatoris – canon, 4 sax (3’23)

Jonathan Harvey, 1987, Ricercare una melodia – canon, 1 sax (5’10)

Eric Sleichim, 1992, Organum – organum, 4 sax (5’26)

Josquin des Prez, 1440-1521 – Qui Habitat, canon, 24 sax (5’00)

Josquin des Prez, 1440-1521, La Déploration de Joannes Okegem – cantus firmus technique, 5 sax (4’25)

Knut Nystedt, 1988, Immortal Bach (after Komm, süsser Tod, J.S. Bach, ) – augmentation canon, 20 sax (4’36)

credits

eric sleichim concept & arrangements
paul van nevel, eugeen schreurs musical advice

BL!NDMAN [sax]
koen maas soprano saxophone
eric sleichim alto saxophone
piet rebel tenor saxophone
raf minten baritone saxophone

universal music, 2002, ref 472596-2