Mario Davidovsky, "Synchronisms 1 & 2"

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MARIO DAVIDOVSKY
Three Synchronisms for instruments and electronic sounds
NO. 1 FOR FLUTE (1963) HARVEY SOLLBERGER (flute)
NO. 2 FOR FLUTE, CLARINET, VIOLIN, CELLO (1964) Sophie Sollberger (flute) Stanley Drucker (clarinet)
Paul Zukofsky (violin), Robert L. Martin ( cello), Efrain Guigui (conductor)

MARIO DAVIDOVSK (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1934) pursued his musical studies in Argentina, working in composition with Guillermo Graetzer, Teodoro Fuchs, Erwin Leuchter, 2nd Ernesto Epstein. In the United States he has studied with Otto Luening and Aaron Copland. Since coming to the United States in 1958, Mr. Davidovsky has won more than a dozen major awards, fellowships and commissions, among them two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, a Koussevitzky Foundation commission and a Fromm Foundation commission for the Synchronism No. 2 recorded here.

While Mr. Davidovsky's reputation has rested largely on the works composed in connection with his association with the electronic music center at Columbia and Princeton universities, his catalog of compositions includes a considerable variety of scores for non-electronic media - chief among them being twp string quartets, a clarinet quintet, Ylanos for orchestra, El Payaso ballet suite, and Serie Sinfdnica. A 1965 Fromm Foundation commission has resulted in Mr. Davidovsky's composition, Inflexions for 14 Players.

Concerning the Three Synchronisms recorded here, Mr. Davidovsky notes that "They belong to a series of short pieces wherein conventional instruments are used in conjunction with electronic sounds. The attempt here has been made to preserve the typical characteristics of the conventional instruments and of the electronic medium respectively - yet to achieve integration of both into a coherent musical texture."

"In the planning and realization of these pieces," Mr. Davidovsky notes further, "two main problems arise - namely proper synchronization (a) of rhythm and (b) of pitch. During the shorter episodes where both electronic and conventional instruments are playing, rather strict timing is adhered to. However, in the more extended episodes of this type, an element of chance is introduced to allow for the inevitable time discrepancies that develop between the live performer(s) and the constant-speed tape recorder.

"To achieve pitch coherence between the conventional instruments which use the 12-tone chromatic scale and the electronic medium which is non-tempered, use is made of tonal occurrences of very high density - manifesied for example by a very high speed succession of attacks, possible only in the electronic medium. Thus, in such instances - based on high speed and short duration of separate tones, it is impossible for the ear to perceive the pure pitch value of each separate event; though in reacting, it does trace so to speak a statistical curve of the density. Only in a very few instances have tempered electronic pitches been employed in the Synchronisms. Throughout all three pieces, the tape recorder has been used as an integral part of the instrumental fabric."