Matthews, Emma-Kate;
(2024)
Spatiosonic dialogues: Exploring architecture's role in music composition and performance.
In: Matthews, Emma-Kate and Burry, Jane and Burry, Mark, (eds.)
The Routledge Companion to the Sound of Space.
(pp. 346-359).
Routledge: London, UK.
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Abstract
This chapter reflects on a project made as part of a larger body of practice-based architectural research which examines poetic and practical relationships between the spatial and sonic practices of making space and making sound, through the medium of site-responsive composition. The project compares two performance spaces with extremely contrasting acoustic characteristics, as a means of examining these relationships in detail. Historically, architecture and music have enjoyed a productive symbiosis, as evidenced in the spatially diverse compositions of Adrian Willaert (c. 1490) and more recently in collaborations such as the one between composer Luigi Nono and architect Renzo Piano for the opera Prometeo (1984). To build upon such work, this chapter discusses the composition and performance of a duet, created by the author. This duet was performed at the acoustically dry location of an anechoic chamber at University College London and at the acoustically reflective space of the Basílica de la Sagrada Família (BSF) in 2017. The Sagrada Familia’s interior has an average reverberation time of approximately 12 seconds. This is problematic for achieving speech intelligibility in the delivery of sermons. Many engineers and designers have attempted to fix this problem with proposals to retrofit acoustic absorbers. However, the composition discussed in this paper takes advantage of this unique condition, by locating musicians at different points around the space and using the building’s reverberation to blend their soloistic parts into a series of undulating harmonic events. By contrast, the anechoic chamber offers a completely dry acoustic condition. This project examines the role of architecture in musical performance. It comes at a time when concert hall design is becoming more standardised due to design trends that favour acoustic certainty for clients and occupants. In this research, Architecture is examined as an active component of music composition and performance as opposed to a mere container for such events.
| Type: | Book chapter |
|---|---|
| Title: | Spatiosonic dialogues: Exploring architecture's role in music composition and performance |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.4324/9781003347149-30 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003347149-30 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Architecture |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208908 |
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