Enrico Malatesta: Éliane Radigue / Lucy Railton

At the Biennale Musica Malatesta performs also Occam Océan – Occam XXVI (2018) by the French pioneer of electronic and drone music Éliane Radigue. This composition, which is part of the acoustic cycle for solo instrumentalists Occam Océan, was written by Radigue especially for Malatesta and is the result of a close collaboration with the Italian percussionist.

Blue Veil is a solo work for cello by Lucy Railton, composed and performed through a highly focused practice of live harmonic perception which emerges from her long-standing investigation into ways of hearing that allow for deeper engagement with harmonic resonance. The work is guided by resonances within the cello’s body, her own, and their shared vibrational space. Railton moves through Blue Veil by giving sounds what they ask for: sounds of pure texture manifesting as a move through temporal transparency, sounds of rough texture marking regions of dimensionally dense space. Her creative and highly refined use of just intonation harmony deforms sound’s inner movements in ways that suggest a mode of listening that actively supplies imagery of sounds implied or completely absent rather than merely savouring those fully present. This active mode of listening-with, playfully and semi-metaphorically referred to by Railton as “sing-along music”, allows listening to reflexively participate in the music’s movement as it gradually passes through richly saturated domains of harmonic imagination. And just as the precision-tuned tones of Blue Veil lose their individuality when fusing multifaceted uniformity, listening structures of reference and recognition dissolve into nameless waves of intensity, continuously unfolding themselves upon and merging with the listener.