Echoes II (quasi improvvisazione) for 1, 2, 3 or 4 pianos, tape and percussion (1961-63)
The 1960s were a very intense and creative time for Tomasz Sikorski. He wrote large sonorist works using modern compositional techniques and – thanks to having access to the Polish Radio Experimental Studio – state-of-the-art technology for sound transformation and processing. The first composition on which Sikorski worked in that studio was Echoes II. He was assisted by Bohdan Mazurek.
The piece was inspired by the phenomenon of echo, which had fascinated Sikorski from childhood and which he had been able to experience firsthand during his frequent trips to Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains. We can image that Echoes II was not his first experiment inspired by the phenomenon. In 1961 he composed Echoes (I), a piece lasting between 7 to 10 minutes. However, the score has not survived, which is why it is difficult to say whether it was only a ‘testing ground’ or an autonomous composition representing different aesthetics, different direction of creative experiments. Documents signed by the composer confirm that a work entitled Echoes (I) was indeed written. However, the matter gets more complicated because of the fact that around mid-1962 a piece entitled Echoes II won Tomasz Sikorski a prize at the 5th Young Composers’ Competition.
In an extensive commentary attached to the score, Sikorski provides detailed technical explanations of how the work in question was made and describes approved ways of performing it:
Echoes II is an instrumental composition to be presented with the use of the radio technique. The technique consists in microphone recording the composition on tape, making specific use of dynamic resonance profiles as well as editing the composition on tape using the imitation possibilities contained in the score.
Echoes II can be presented in two versions: a radio version and a concert version. The radio version involves producing the work stereophonically (two- or four-channel mode) on tape. The concert version consists in playing the work stereophonically in a concert hall – 4 or 2 loudspeakers for a two- or four-channel recording of some parts of the work, while the other parts are played simultaneously by performers.
The composition is made up of main voices marked with numbers as well as additional voices marked with numbers in brackets.
All main voices must be played in their entirety both in the radio and in the concert version. The additional voices are repetitions of the main voices. Each of the additional voices can but does not have to be performed (both in the radio and in the concert version). The additional voices are imitations of the main voices (anticipations or delays). The additional voices can be performed in their entirety or in part (they may begin and end at any moment in their progression).
When discussing a concert performance of the work, the composer writes that
Echoes II can be played by 1, 2, 3 or 4 pianos, tape and percussion. The percussion part can be performed: 1) live, 2) on tape and live. Concert performers should end each sequence as it ends on the tape at the latest. (...)
The order of voice entries is at the performers’ discretion throughout the composition. The performers should seek a maximum variety in the temporal dimension of the composition (use of ranges in seconds).
Attention: The notion of the vertical does not apply in the score.
The commentary also includes valuable remarks for the sound engineer:
The composition should be recorded in a way as to ensure equality of the two sound layers: the sounds played by the performers and their sustain (piano resonance and chimes sustain). The first version of the composition was made by means of a two-microphone method, with one microphone being used to obtain ‘normal sound’ and the other – placed very close to the sound source (ca 20 cm) – to obtain sustain sound. The dynamic profiles of the sustained sounds as well as their dynamic scale should be controlled by the sound engineer during the microphone recording.
The composer then proceeds to give precise instructions concerning a concert performance of every one of the seven Sequenzas into which Echoes II is divided.
When reading such a detailed commentary with explanations of the graphic notation of the work covering two pages, and even when listening to a performance of the composition, we may have the impression that the work was composed according to some very complex rules. In fact, however, the idea is very simple and the various instructions concern primarily the man possibilities (variants) of performing the piece.
The basic element of the work is the piano I part, which is transposed in piano II, III and IV parts – these are the main, obligatory voices marked with numbers. Pianos II, III and IV constitute echoes of piano I. The numbers in the brackets denote the auxiliary voices, which are not mandatory. Each of them is a repetition, an echo of the main voice ascribed to it. There is another kind of echo in the piece – sustain, making up the third layer, for which the sound engineer is responsible. A similar situation occurs in the case of Sequenza IV for chimes, which constitutes the composition’s axis.