MONUMENTUM PRO THOMAS ALVA EDISON

The name Thomas Alva Edison stands as a synonym for creativity and inventiveness in the title of this work of the composer closely associated with the Generative Computer Chord Program developed by the composer together with Gottfried Hinker. The work chronicles the development of this computer program, recording its individual stages built on juxtaposition and analysis, inversion, transposition and realignment of various 3-6 part chords.

At the same time the individual parts can be attributed to the various stages of development and can result in divers tonal effects. MONUMENTUM PRO THOMAS ALVA EDISON I is thus the product of the first utilizable program. It is based exclusively on four-part chords which are combined together according to various possibilities offered by the chord program.

each comprising two contrasting parts and divided into three different periods. In the first section chords comprising the same three notes are linked together. Three such chords are joined together to form a cell and become so to speak disassociated from the next cell in as much as none of the notes reappears in the first chord of the next cell. Several of these cells unite to form a period separated from foreign periods in that each chord has different notes to the preceeding one. There are thus two contrasting periods: one formed from cells comprising several chords harmonically separated from each other, and another whose chords themselves are separated from each other. Three of these 'dualities' then form a section of the piece.

In the second section the cell progression of the first period is then made up in each case of three chords possessing two common notes; in the third section the cell progression of the first period comprises ultimately three chords sharing one common note. Each of the second period remains the same according to the previously described chord contrasting with no common tone. In this way the differences between the first and second periods become successively less pronounced.
The number of cells as well as the number of chords within the periods vary from version to version (the composer conceives for each piece different sound constructions or 'castings' to use an analogous expression from the language of sculpture fitting to "Monumentum") while remaining constant overall. There are, for example, altogether 15 cells and 9 chords designated for MONUMENTUM I. These are divided in the first 'casting' for violin, double bass and guitar into 6 cells - 2 chords - 4 cells - 4 chords; in casting no.2 for violin, clarinet, tenor saxofone and piano into 5 cells - 3 chords - 4 cells - 4 chords - 6 cells - 2 chords; in casting no.3 for violin, viola and cello into 5 cells - 4 chords - 4 cells - 2 chords - 6 cells - 3 chords.
For anybody interested in hearing the results of this process there follows a recording of casting no.1 of MONUMENTUM PRO THOMAS ALVA EDISON I in the version for violin (played by the composer), guitar (Leo Witosynski) and double bass (Michael Seiried). The first performances of the three existing castings of MONUMENTUM I by Ensemble Wiener Collage were: Casting I in March 1998, Casting II on 28.9.1998 in Vienna's Karajan-Center and Casting III on 27.11.1998 in Lisbon.