Birds of the Cathedral

One of 4,756 items in the series: MISAME available on this site.
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Description

We invest the birds of human qualities to create imaginary connections between them and the men. This is what the old storytellers did too, but at bottom the parable spoke of the relationship between man and man. Finally - through music - this piece also speaks about them and us. His composer has tried to pay attention to what the birds themselves know and can do for themselves: the melody, the rhythm, and the possible meanings of their intonation, which have been familiar to us for so long. This is not just the usual information of a coexistence of a … continued below

Physical Description

1 sound recording (14 min., 12 sec.)

Creation Information

Decsényi, János 1991.

Context

This audio recording is part of the collection entitled: Mnemothèque Internationale des Arts Electroacoustiques and was provided by the UNT Music Library to the UNT Digital Library, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. More information about this recording can be viewed below.

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UNT Music Library

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Titles

  • Main Title: Birds of the Cathedral
  • Series Title: MISAME

Description

We invest the birds of human qualities to create imaginary connections between them and the men. This is what the old storytellers did too, but at bottom the parable spoke of the relationship between man and man.
Finally - through music - this piece also speaks about them and us. His composer has tried to pay attention to what the birds themselves know and can do for themselves: the melody, the rhythm, and the possible meanings of their intonation, which have been familiar to us for so long. This is not just the usual information of a coexistence of a million years. Precisely, what we pay attention to - here and now - is not something that is outside the limited world of man. Maybe it's something that exists in humans. This is in the depth of the unconscious, on which our existence of man is constructed. Whence these particular relations, these strange rhymes between the voice of man and that of the bird come from?
The birds live around the cathedral already for a very long time. They were fluttering around her already when the towers rising to the heavens were still surrounded by a forest of scaffolds, and they enveloped men and stones in carpets of sounds intertwined with each other.
The construction of the composition is based on a line with double variation. On the one hand, it comes from the world of human sounds, whose main theme could be even a Gregorian melody, and on the other side, the world of the sounds of birds. These two basic layers can be heard sometimes separately, reinforcing each other, one rhyming on the other, sometimes contrasting, emphasizing the correlation even in the latter case. So the game is played according to "decent" rules.
The work uses as raw material the acoustic environment that surrounds the cathedral, or rather that unfolded (could have unfolded) in over the centuries. In addition, the piece transforms all this, and completes it with a world of synthetic sounds with the help of computer programs.
The work, which consists of nineteen micro-structures, "unfolds" sometimes in an outside space (outside the cathedral) and sometimes in an "abstract" interior space.

Physical Description

1 sound recording (14 min., 12 sec.)

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Collections

This recording is part of the following collection of related materials.

Mnemothèque Internationale des Arts Electroacoustiques

Sound recordings of electroacoustic music from the archive of the International de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB). The works were created in the IMEB studios or submitted by participants of the Festival Synthèse or the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Competition. Access is restricted to the UNT community.

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Creation Date

  • 1991

Added to The UNT Digital Library

  • May 27, 2021, 11:27 a.m.

Description Last Updated

  • April 6, 2023, 5:04 p.m.

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Decsényi, János. Birds of the Cathedral, audio recording, 1991; Bourges, France. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1808671/: accessed June 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Music Library.

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