CHARLES DODGE (1942- )
The Waves (voice, electronics)
Shie Shoji - voice
Thessaloniki Concert Hall, 7 June 2016
‘The Waves’, for solo and tape, was composed in 1984 for Joan La Barbara, who performs live to an accompaniment derived from the qualities of her own voice. Dodge pre-recorded La Barbara reciting the Woolf passage and performing specific extended vocal techniques Dodge mapped and extracted the acoustical gestures of La Barbara’s voice (pitch and features of speech) for use in designing the work’s synthesized and computer enhanced sounds.
The work is based on the first paragraph of Virginia Woolf’s novel by the same name. Dodge chose the text in part because of Woolf’s extraordinary use of language in which the means of description mirrors the process described. For example, in the ending passage, Woolf’s phrasing suggests the perpetual rhythm of the waves themselves and Dodge’s music reflects this in wavelike forms, patterns and movement.
Text
“The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened, a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually.”
Virginia Woolf, ‘The Waves’