Structure IV
Utrecht Series
1973; 16:34 min.
Structure IV is a through-composed work in three main movements the heralds much of my future electronic music. The middle section is highly song-like, with high, sirene-like sounds gradually coming to the fore. The emphasis clearly is on creating an unbroken flow of sound, in a space within which distances draw attention to proximities (such that objects once near are removed into the distance), and vice versa. Composed by way of frequency modulation techniques, the music becomes a physical entity floating through acoustic space with the greatest liberty. In such a space, densities become measurable on a scale from zero to infinite.
In this piece, the computer is used as a sound source, as well as a tool for designing the score that is being "orchestrated". However, the computer is not the final arbiter of musical form which resides in the composer's listening mind. The original four-track materials generated by the computer were mixed in ways entirely dependent on the composer's perceptual analysis.
Structure IV was composed for concerts at the Institute of Sonology at Geertekerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands, using B. Truax POD5 program for computer-aided sound synthesis. Performances include: the Institute of Sonology (1973), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1973), Zagreb New Music Festival (1974), Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Bourges (1974), Festival Pro Musica Nova, Bremen (1974), Belgian Radio, Ghent, Belgium (1978), University of Illinois, Urbana (1978), and NEWCOMP, Boston, MA (1990).