Zack Browning: Breakpoint Screamer.(Review)

Compact disc, 1998, Capstone Records, CD CPS-8656; available from Albany Music Distributors, Inc., 915 Broadway, Albany, New York 12207, USA; telephone (800) 752-1951

Two releases, two composers with electroacoustic pieces representing two generations ... in one review. Actually, both of these CDs are collections of compositions by seven composers each. The first one, Transcendencies, is No. 12 of the Society of Composers, Inc., CD Series for which the compositions are selected by a regional rotating panel of composers. The second one, Diverse Settings, was recorded by New York clarinetist Esther Lamneck. Even though almost all compositions on these two discs were composed during the 1990s, only one composition on each is, at least in part, electronic in nature: Zack Browning's Breakpoint Screamer (1994), for five trumpets and computer-generated tape, and Eun-Bae Kim's Sounds of Pusan (no date), for clarinet, recorded clarinet, and tape.

Breakpoint Screamer by the University of Illinois professor of composition and music theory, Zack Browning, was commissioned by the International Trumpet Guild (ITG) for performance at the 1994 ITG conference at the University of Illinois. Several layers of pulse-oriented patterns bring trumpets and tape together in a unique and fresh way, creating an energy-carrying dramaturgy that culminates towards the end of the 7-minute piece. Each pattern, with a distinct rhythmic and melodic appearance, may change its global position so that not only different patterns get together at different times in the composition, but also with a different local position to each other. Thus, different polyrhythms are constantly created. As the listener learns from the CD cover, the tape used in this piece was produced with GACSS (Genetic Algorithms in Composition and Sound Synthesis), a software package developed by the Illinois composer, artist, and multi-media specialist, Benjamin Grosser. With GACSS, sound synthesis and compositional parameters are controlled by genetic algorithms. The timbres generated by the program are classified with regard to their waveform, called breakpoints. Breakpoints specifically represent the number of peaks and the distance between those peaks. ...