Wendy / Walter Carlos, still undisputed master (e) electronic refunds baroqueux, congratulated by G. Gould himself

A year after his tremendous success achieved in the late 60s for his album "Switched-On Bach" (more than 400,000 albums sold in just one year), Wendy / Walter Carlos proposed to the late 60s, "more virtuoso electronic performance, "another proposal of his personal rereading this time expanded, in addition to JS Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Handel and Monteverdi.
A title aeil blink of Bach: "Well-tempered Synthesizer", with more inspired pouch from the end of "2001" S. Kubrick, in the presence of Louis XVI wig projected in space / time. .. But the protagonist of the 1st plan assumes mixing universe firmly on his two legs, defiantly!

In the notice published exclusively in English, the director of the company Columbia Masterworks then, wrote that this first album mentioned above, allowed the young audience "ordinarily amateur rock and folk, to spread the word about this recording that offered a new and new. " In addition, criticism was also unanimous. Hence the extension of the approach with this next album. And to conclude for him: "In this new proposal, Carlos refined and honed his powers of synthesizing an almost incredible degree. "
Conveniently, he has / she had to again re-orchestrate then record all the voices separately one after the other and combine them then?

Wendy / Walter Carlos also says, "The music on this disc consists of faithful transcriptions / performances of the music of Bach, Handel, Monteverdi and Scarlatti. "
About the ensemble "Cantus firmus" extract from the "Domine ad adjuvandum" Monteverdi [last piece of the disk], he / she says it represents "a first experience in crossing the space between the vocal and instrumental media and contains some of the more complex sounds that I received on the current synthesizer. Voice as the joint here required a careful agreement of almost every module on the synthesizer and was executed by a practiced hand and foot coordination to choose the launch, with vibrato, volume, portamento [the piano, how to play between legato and staccato] and vowels producing resonances, which was adjusted to the maximum expressiveness of the six voice parts: soprano I, II, alto, tenor, baritone, bass. "
In the aftermath of Domenico Scarlatti, "as it consisted of two counterpoints with rarely more than 3 or 4 voices, I thought a direct representation of a color, different or related on each voice could be particularly effective musically. So I tried to cut each part from many colors, almost pointilleusement, but in the end all the full sense of the different phrasing and voice leading. "

He / she further notes this: "fragmentation". Of course, keeping as perfectly as possible and practicable the spirit of the original work.
For the "4th Brandenburg Concerto" by JS Bach, designed for three solo instruments in addition to the small set of strings and continuo, he / she retailed specifically its approach vis-à-vis the rule of such an instrument.

Note also that for almost all Artworks (Monteverdi, Handel, Bach), he / she joined "several hybrid techniques echo reverb".
And he / she concludes, "the musical rhythms and phrases are custom preferences idealized suggested by these standard 4 centuries representations that excited me for years. "

Melodically and musical way, in these "allegrossissimo" relentless, one can not help feeling an irresistible urge to smile or even laugh when you hear all these distortions irresistible, with his way of tweaking sounds almost always in good taste.
Precisely, was it for him / her a way to pay tribute to these composers of the past, or to rid them of dust he / she believed that they kept; to the "refresh" by the new and modern means?

But he / she was not content to faithfully render the notes of sheet music, like a Conlon Nancarrow would have inserted the partitions in a computer program of the 70s; precisely his art was to reinterpret all possible layers of the Moog synthesizer he / she had, and pass through its prism.
A displaced exuberance? An existing hoax? A fun schoolboy?

As a cartoonist, he / she exaggerates, exacerbates, magnifies the line dancing to baroque ensembles, a trill, a counterpoint with a stereo effect of the vote, or accelerates emphasizes a figure of speech but without betraying their original spirit.
One might object critical he / she could have come (e) to "smooth" the melodies, making everything from scratch, since the synthesizer relayed both instruments and vocals by the same synthetic prism.
But his response is precisely its realization itself: there is rendering remarkable homogeneity multiple voices of original scores, just sublimated by the use of "different sounds" to show the multiple layers that originally consisted violins, choir, other instruments. A remarkable work of reappropriation of the works newly carved and offering a new transparent lace, ball and very precise.

Elsewhere, solemn pump "Water Music" by Handel is accentuated as the slow movements of the "4th Brandenburg Concerto." Is this perhaps why Glenn Gould was so appreciative for this staccato effect highlighting and stretching the joint remarkably Bach thought of the maestro? Article is inserted so appreciative that he wrote after the album "Switched-On Bach," he called "record of the decade!"

In a text accompanying the disc, he / she expanded vis-à-vis electronic music subject, and responded to questions that it lands on its approach. "What is a synthesizer? They are both more instruments. They carry the devices that require the musician is employing at the same time, performer and arranger. But the flexibility of the synthesizer is like a two-edged sword: for every detail and setting, you can order, you must order (...) A synthesizer is not a computer. "

This is the genius and charm of his experiments. Besides, according to him / her, some wanted to exploit the seam reinterpretations of these synthesizers, but never with the same happiness nor even sufficient perfection.

A short program (under 40), corresponding to the faces of a vinyl record at the time.
With more, even more fun to listen on vinyl just ...