Double Canon

Double Canon for winds (string), melodic percussions, dulcimer, keyboard instruments and performers consists of two separate compositions: the Canon of the Nativity of Our Lord of the Eastern Catholic Church and the Canon of the Welcoming of Shabbat Angels of the Jewish Rite. The former bears the structure of the original canon of the Eastern Catholic Church – a panegyric hymn consisting of eight odes. The latter reflects the traditional, musical meaning of the word. Both compositions work together as well as separately, allowing for various forms of arrangement, concord, and sequence. They act separately as fragments of a dedicated mythical and liturgical genre, and, at the same time, as structural units of an unfinished opera about Bishop Gojdič. The order of the fragments of the composition is defined by random operations (chance), which is a legitimate reference to the acknowledgement of higher principle in Jewish Christian tradition. The visible form is created by players assembling five images on the floor.

The visual art works represent a selection of works inspired by metaphysics inherently associated with the relation between the objective reality and infinite flow. They bring about references to kinetic evolutionary moments by static means. The volatile “vestigia dei” revealed for a short moment for the spectators is brought to a standstill in this fragile phase. Images broken down into fragments in form of cards serve as a visual and temporal beacons for the performers. The reverse sides of the cards offer a whole world of possible augmentation of standard musical notation via signs of Hebrew alephbeth. The original form of the script is deemed sacred by the Jews, but hand-written form holds something universal within: a reference to ancient Phoenician alphabet, so potent thanks to its pictographic capacity. This is perhaps one of the reasons why religious and specific traits are absent. Bull’s head, house, door, window, fence, camel, hook, arm, fish… These can be viewed from the perspective of protolinguistics as both numbers as well as phonetic representations of human speech in Semitic and perhaps post Greek and Roman scripture systems which, after all, originated in Phoenician system.

The scenography is rendered as a compact projection space. The performers both create and carry the projected images, and the superposition of livestreams from several cameras change the optical situation on stage and gives the spectators the opportunity to watch the evolution of the composition in time through visual code. The sound of dice being cast onto ceramic bowls gives a cue to the performer of the number of cards to be turned and thus become the organic musical structure.

The composition was made at the time when Nataša Köteles, the member of a.h.U.H. ensemble, passed away. “A song for you, to the faraway neverland…! Heave away, sail off to heaven as these silent notes…”

Juraj Vajó lives a creative life in the northern part of Košice. He used to live downtown for a short period of time and that is when he founded the Urban Hudák ensemble, which eventually transformed into a.h.U.H. The permanent members are Attila Tverďák – a guitar player, an avid expressive artist and the author of pictographic reverse sides of the cards, and Boris Vaitovič – a bass and theremin player, painter and multimedia artist, and the author of face sides of the cards.

Performance comments

Canon of the Welcoming of Shabbat Angels. Two winds players and a performer have 10 cards with alephbeth pictorial symbols (they form a set of 22 symbols along with the 12 letters of Canon of the Nativity of Our Lord). The reverse of each card bears a fragment of a large picture that should be assembled on the stage. Each winds player and the performer draws a card and then casts a dice.The sound of the falling dices onto the various pot is the organic part of composition. Abreviation “OoL” means “Ottoni oppure Legni” ( eventually some string instrument), “MoV” means Marimbafono oppure Vibrafono” ( eventually some another instrument)

Casting rules for musicians:

1. Winds player plays his/her part in the acoustic field of live or recorded music;

2. The player compels the attention of another winds player by a strike of one high-pitch tone and prepares for playing together while the rest of the players and the performer go on;

3. The player compels the attention of the whole ensemble, including the performer, by a strike of two high-pitch tones followed by a grand pause and then by the whole ensemble playing together the part indicated by the alephbeth letter. The high-pitch cue may be repeated.

4. The player selects one out of two instruments; the degree and parameters of the interplay are arbitrary;

5. The player selects the third instrument; the degree and parameters of the interplay are arbitrary;

6. Two pages of the score in A3 landscape orientation are played – the one with specific symbol (in case of scores with the symbol of Cross (Kríž), Snake(Užovka) or Scraper(Škrabka), the reverse sides shall be played). The attention of the whole ensemble is compelled by a strike of three high-pitch tones followed by a grand pause and then by the whole ensemble playing together.

In case of numbers 1, 2, 3 and 6, the player chooses an instrument at his/her own discretion.

In case of numbers 4 and 5, only the wind instruments with applicable intonation and range capabilities shall be selected.

The performer can use 10 sound files of different durations. (01 Snake/Užovka/, 02 Needle Ear /Ucho ihly/, 03 Dagger /Dýka/, 04 Knees /Kolená/, 05 Cross /Kríž/, 06 Eye /Oko/, 07 Fence /Plot/, 08 The Finger Of God /Prst B-ží/, 09 Fish /Ryba/ 10 Scraper /Škrabka/ The files marked with Scraper and Snake symbol represent studio recordings of the complete Canon of the Nativity of Our Lord performed by Trio Marcipio and U.H. ensembles; the remaining eight files are the recordings of Canon of the Welcoming of Shabbat Angels performed by the U.H. ensemble. The performer, as well as winds (string) players, shall draw a card and cast the dice.

Casting rules for performer:

1. Modifications of tone colour;

2. Intense dynamic contrasts;

3. Tempo transformations;

4. Reverse movement;

5. Contrasts of tones and pauses;

6. No sound transformations and modifications.

These are, of course, baseline instructions; they need not be followed strictly. The use of loops is arbitrary. The performer may refer to the score and try to sync up with musicians; should not focus on the assembly of the picture on the floor, but rather concentrate on music. Abrupt two and three high-pitch tone cues made by winds players shall instruct the performer to cease the action linked to specific letter. Only fragments from Scraper and Adder files may be used. The performer shall put the drawn card back into the deck, shuffle the deck and shall draw more or less cards that the total number of cards in the deck.

Double Canon shall terminate after the last of the five pictures is assembled on the floor. Any of the dedicated two-page scores may be played as coda.

Asynchrónie Chamber Ensemble

Veronika Vitázková – flute

Juraj Helcmanovský Jnr. – dulcimer

Júlia Novosedlíková – piano

Lenka Novosedlíková – melodic percussion instruments

Andrej Gál – cello

Boris Vaitovič – video projection

Peter Javorka – art director, samples and music playback (Urban Hudák Ensemble: L. Bujňáková, N. Kötelesová, M. Oros, P. Duchnický A. Tverďák, B. Vaitovič, J. Helcmanovský, J. Vajó)

Techrider

Visual part:

1. two separate projector / first one for shoving live stream of collection image process during composition / second one for projecting over the whole scene of players on the stage

2. two separate cameras conected to projector + tripods, for live streaming - transfering image from detail the screen and stage

3. white overall one use clothing (cheep industrial ) for every player on the stage + white easy blanket to cover instrument as piano, to turn them into projection spaces on the stage. (As you can see in video)

Audio part:

PC connected to sound system with possibility to run separate audio files. Ocassionaly to use it DMX/MIDI controler.

Scores, Cards, Audio files