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Vermeer's Mirror (2009)

by Ewan Stefani

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Vermeer’s Mirror (2009)
Acoustic and electronic instrumental recordings are used in this work to provide a musical analogue of the photographic techniques used by Vermeer and other renaissance artists, who employed the camera obscura to project a representation of the subject onto the canvas. This detailed, photographic-quality image was used by Vermeer to provide detailed templates for the composition of each work. Vermeer also made use of the mirror to provide perfectly focussed smaller details of the subject which were then painted into the larger composition. The resulting works benefited from a vibrancy and detail that was not otherwise possible.

The instrumental phrases used in this acousmatic work provide the sonic references for the music and are drawn from much larger, composed musical structures which were written for this piece. Each note of the original material is ‘painted’ using the computer to re-colour, re-texture, re-synthesize and re-contextualise the source material throughout the piece. Colouring and textural variations are achieved by making use of spectral processing, detailed editing and envelope shaping, for example.

An intended effect of this treatment of instrumental sounds was to create ‘roughness’ and dynamic variations in the music that would normally be associated with live performance. The music should have a sense of imperfection and improvisation in the sound, and an unusual level of ambient granularity in the sonic textures resulting from the layered processes of ‘re-painting’ each individual note of the composed material. Use of pitched sounds permits the investigation of (microtonal) melodic and harmonic development, to be explored concurrently with a more organic, spectromorphological approach.

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released April 27, 2023

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Ewan Stefani Leeds, UK

Ewan Stefani is a composer, musician and academic based in the UK.

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