Henry Gwiazda: noTnoTesnoTrhyThms.(Review)

Compact disc, 1996, innova 505; available from innova Recordings, 332 Minnesota Street, Suite E-145, St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-1300, USA; telephone (651) 228-1407; fax (651) 291-7978; electronic mail mail@composersforum.org; World Wide Web www.composersforum.org/noframe/ innova/innova.html

There are a number of ways of spatializing sound in computer music. Mostly, I have felt that they have been either too expensive, or too difficult to access. For example, the Acousmonium in Paris may be marvelous, but I live in Melbourne, Australia, where the kind of government or educational-institution support that makes such multi-loudspeaker orchestras possible doesn't exit. One way of moving sound that requires only a home stereo, albeit in a very precise setup, is Virtual Audio. When I first heard a demonstration of this in the mid 1990s, for some reason I wasn't impressed. So when I got Henry Gwiazda's disc, I put off setting up my speakers in the proper position for months. When I finally did it, I was amazed. My initial cynicism about the possibilities of Virtual Audio melted away, as buzzingreynold'sdreamland, Mr. Gwiazda's speaker-oriented virtual audio piece from 1994, convinced me about the compositional possibilities of this technology. This is a piece in which space is truly used compositionally.

The first part of this compact disc has a number of collages composed between 1989 and 1992, such as the stunning MANEATINGCHIPS LISTENINGTOAVIOLIN. They are all very beautiful, but that beauty is here greatly augmented and extended by the ability to place each sound in a three-dimensional world in front of, and, in some cases, behind the listener, and to give each sound its own trajectory in space. And this happens without the need for multi-speaker sound systems. It's true that the effect can only be heard by one person at a time, but that's how most CD listening takes place anyway.

To say that Henry Gwiazda makes ...