Скачать или смотреть Annie Gosfield: Cranks and Cactus Needles

For flute, piano, violin and cello
THE PEARLS BEFORE SWINE EXPERIENCE : GEORGE KENTROS violin, SARA HAMMARSTRÖM flute, MATS OLOFSSON cello, MARTEN LANDSTRÖM piano Commissioned by The Pearls Before Swine Experience
CRANKS AND CACTUS NEEDLES was commissioned by the fine Stockholm based ensemble “The Pearls Before Swine Experience”, who road-tested the piece in venues ranging from rural Scandinavian churches and clubs to concert halls in New York City. The piece is inspired by the sound of ancient 78 RPM records, and the pops, scratches, skips and warps that accumulate as the discs deteriorate. “Cranks” refers to the handles of the record players that had to be cranked in order to play a 78, and “Cactus Needles” refers to the cactus spines that were used as phonograph needles. (Cactus needles were used when metals were at a premium during World War II, and they caused less wear and tear on records.) In the score, the musicians are instructed to play the piece “distant and ghostly, like a Victrola down the hall”, and to use uneven vibratos, imperfect repeats, detuned intervals and unpitched scrapes to evoke the decaying sounds of these shellac discs. The CD ends on an appropriate note, with the violin and cello echoing the sound of a needle stuck in an end groove, quietly maintaining the even, consistent scratch that signals the end of this now obsolete technology.