Trace Series by Martin Matalon

Martin Malaton’s paintings; the Trace series first debuted in 1997. It was typically described as a product that straddled the lines between original chamber music and solo concerto creation. The Traces series was designed with solo instruments and in-the-moment processing in mind. It prominently includes the author’s catalog and what could be considered a composing journal.

The solo pieces in the cycle of real-time transformed solo compositions begin with Traces I (2004) for cello and electronics. The goal of Martin Matalon’s environment-making was to use technology to alter and transcend the soloist’s environment and physical location. It is a presentation of art opposing two formal elaboration and the corresponding number of musical sound tone with the first construction done at a time of no music pulsation. There is a correspondence between the full sound of the first panel and the second. This character results acoustically by the use of a lead mute in the cello, which is corroborated electronically by the use of different types of filtering. Contrasting with the linearity of the first panel, this one has a circular form: One layer, is formed by a six-measure pizz phrase, once it is played, it is recorded by Max’s real-time sampler and then looped until the end of the piece, following predetermined transpositions that occur in an aleatoric way. On top of this kind of passacaglia-like layer, other objects, more ethereal and fantastic take place. The circular form of this panel, as opposed to the first, occurs in a pulsated environment.

Traces II (2005) is formally constructed through the idea of ​​multiplicity: a circumscribed and defined musical idea will know a series of ramifications that will lead to the formation of differentiated and complementary structures. This premise of multiplicity and its opposite, the uniqueness, sometimes in verse, sometimes parallel, shape the musical idea throughout the play.

Traces III (2006) of the horn is part of a triptych formed by Traces VI for marimba and Traces V for clarinet. The three works form the Nocturnes. In Traces III, we never hear a single note from the other two instruments (marimba and clarinet). However, they are ubiquitous: all the electronic treatments that will undergo the horn are modeled by the other two instruments. Whether by the harmonic content (a kind of addition and contraction of the fundamental spectrum of the marimba and the clarinet) or by resonance models or by filtering.

Traces IV (2006) is the central piece of “Nocturnes”. Its formal structure in three movements is a miniature image of the form of the whole triptych. The marimba undergoes electronic treatment with each one of them being modeled by two different instruments. Usually, the harmonic content has a relation with its spectral content of the French horn and clarinet fundamentals. All these marimba resonances use French horn models and clarinets which serve a purpose of filtering various marimbas delays.

Traces V (2006) is constructed in two contrasting movements. This opposition does not translate into a contrast in the material, nor the tempo, nor in terms of space, dynamics, notes, pulsation, and speed. Now both sections have the same material. The contrast and the formal articulation will be drawn through the notion of lightness (weightlessness) and its opposite density: The first movement spreads during the first two thirds of the piece; a hybrid material consisting of notes and sound effects (game modes) arises in time, with no apparent direction and interspersed with real and virtual silences. Without transition, the second section springs from silence, this same material used in the first movement, will here condense in time and superimposed in space thus creating two or three layers at the same time. This formal premise of lightness and density is the knot and the formal reason for this piece.

Fig 1. Martin Matalon

Traces VI (multiplicand) for flute and device, continues the cycle of pieces for solo instrument with transformation in real time which are a kind of red wire of Martin Matalon’s activity of composer.

For soprano and real-time electronics, Traces VII (2008) consists of a prologue, three central movements, and an epilogue. The prologue is a musical mobile built by two types of objects: simple objects and complex objects. These objects are juxtaposed without apparent logic, if not by an idea of ​​complementarity. Each of the complex objects will become, as and when the work unfolds, one of the three median movements, a kind of close-up or ”zoom in“ of each complex object of the prologue. The epilogue is similar to the prologue except that the complex objects that formed the motive of the first section are no longer there. A new form is revealed: a continuous and purified line, the opposite of which is formal and with completely divergent narrative contours of the prologue, is emerging.

Traces VIII (2012), for violin and electronic device, continues the cycle of pieces for a single instrument with transformation in real time or deferred, thread red of Martin Matalon’s work of the composer.

The shape of Traces VIII is open and structured in five movements. The passage between two movements is to ”staple“ with a common detail sometimes harmless. Thus, each movement leads to another, the two have little or no relationship between them except a relationship of complementarity. Several formal frames weave its course: among others, a frame governs the sound amplitude, another the progressive unveiling of the timbre and the register. To speak more precisely, they consist of a linear progression that goes from the intimate sound to the profusion of sound. The implementation is as follows: each movement corresponds to a specific mute. The progression is from the most muffled sound to free sound, muted lead to the natural sound without filtering, through the ”practice mute“ and the ordinary mute. This acoustic drawing is corroborated in parallel by the same process, but in its electronic form, which uses different forms of filtering and enrichment of the timbre. A third frame concerns the stamp and the register. It takes place almost parallel to the previous one and contributes somehow to its legibility: as the piece unfolds, the sound palette is enriched by the gradual introduction of game modes. At the same time, an opening of the register leads to the fourth movement, which will exclusively use the high-pitched region of the violin and the ultra-serious sounds of electronics. These extremes will create a spectral emptiness throughout the region of the medium that will be quickly filled in the last movement where we will listen for the first time the natural timbre of the violin. The processing of time is just as dynamic, and goes from striated but not pulsed time to pulsed time, phantom pulsation or suspended time.

In Traces IX (2014), the idea of ​​weightlessness, and its opposite, density are the formal premises of this piece. The two peripheral movements are two reinterpretations of lightness while the central movement articulates the idea of ​​density. This work is a sort of metaphor for the cello’s note: in the center the note with its harmonic spectrum: it is the hard core of the work, the moment when the whole of the piece converges and diverges. This ”state“, is built from a series of broken lines that telescope with increasing intensity as the piece unfolds. The only moment in the room where the notes of the cello are heard.

It follows an exploration of the fundamental, a shift to the ultra-serious through the scordatura and its electronic processing, which goes down until the sound becomes inaudible. In the two sections that surround this center, the peripheral sounds of the cello are staged. The center of interest in these two sections is the treatment of timbre and space. In the first, all noisy sounds are mixed and form a kind of musical mobile. In the last, we find this mobile but now deconstructed: four mini sections featuring each of its elements follow one another: the section of the fundamental, that of the Ponti cello, the wooded section of the legno collar and finally the multiple sections that combine, the noises horsehair, splint, harmonics, and breath.

The multiple dimension offered by real-time, combined with the flexibility of writing for a solo instrument, makes this genre a sort of magnificent laboratory which enabled Martin Matalon to find formal structuring that eludes conventional contrasts; hence, weightlessness and density (Traces V), multiplicity and unicity (Traces II, VI), the idea of construction/deconstruction (Traces VII), or else: beaten time/suspended time (Traces I), or expansive/intimate sound (Traces I, II).

Works Cited

Cox, Christopher and Daniel Warner. Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum, 2004.

Doyle, Peter. Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2005.

Holmes, Thomas B. Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in Technology and Composition. London: Routledge, 2002.