Cornell University
Reconstituting (and Rehearing) the Networks of Modul 69B: A Performance Project of Stockhausen’s Mantra for two pianos and electronics
In 1970, pianists Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky premiered Stockhausen’s 70¬minute¬long Mantra at the Donaueschingen Musiktage. Among the accessories flanking them were two clunky, gray boxes of mysterious material disposition. This device, an analog ring modulator christened “Modul 69B,” included a set of microphone inputs and amplifiers, a compressor, filter, sine¬wave generator, and volume control, built by Hans Peter Haller to Stockhausen’s exacting specifications. Designed primarily to process live signals from the pianos, it multiplied inputs with sine¬wave frequencies to produce a range of highly distinctive timbres. Modul 69B, however, was dying on arrival. Pestova et al. have observed “there is a certain short[¬]sightedness” built in the piece: just as the Modul has already gone the way of obsolescence, Mantra may risk a similar fate. Contemporary performances have looked to digitization of the various components of the Modul, and due to the prohibitively high cost of renting officially sanctioned software (and sound engineers), many performers have sought to design their own patches with software like Max/MSP, participating in what Siva Vaidhyanathan has called the “democratization of creativity.”
We will chronicle the process of reconstructing our own updating of Mantra ’s technology in preparation for a first performance. In doing so, we will explore the “map of mediations” (Tresch & Dolan) of the Modul: its variable relations and coordinations with digitized descendants, sound engineers, performers, and pianos. In realizing Robert Esler’s notion of “digital autonomy,” which advocates increased performer agency in re¬realizations of electroacoustic works, we will examine the consequences of decoupling and re¬assembling what Stephan Hoffmann deemed to be very innovation of the Modul, namely “the union of [its] different parts.” By necessarily distorting the constitutive and regenerative dynamics of its network––its “autopoiesis”––we will interrogate the notion widely held by Mantra ’s interpreters of performance practice as reconstruction and progress.
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American pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a career performing everything from standard repertoire to electroacoustic improvisations. He has appeared frequently with orchestra, including the Toronto Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and highlights of recent seasons include George Benjamin's Duet with the Toronto Symphony, conducted by the composer, and co-directorship of Environs Messiaen, a festival at Cornell University celebrating Olivier Messiaen's bird music in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Ryan is a doctoral candidate in Keyboard Studies at Cornell University where he works with Xak Bjerken. For more information, visit www.RMMpiano.com.
Andrew Zhou is a D.M.A. candidate in Keyboard Studies at Cornell University by way of New England Conservatory (piano performance) and Stanford University (international relations, music). His primary research interests center on issues of listening, perception, materiality, and technology in piano works of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as the intersection of music and diplomacy. As a performer, he has worked closely with many leading composers of our time, including Unsuk Chin, Tod Machover, and Tristan Murail. He has appeared in festivals at Tanglewood and Lucerne, among others, and was a finalist and laureate of the Concours International de Piano d'Orléans. In 2014, he released “Vienne et après,” an album featuring premiere recordings of works by Matthias Pintscher and Olga Neuwirth.