Androgyne, Mon Amour incorporates a setting of six poems by Tennessee Williams from his book of the same title, as read by Douglas Huffman. The poems are intensely lyrical, intimate and erotic in a celebration of gay love that is acted out, both musically and dramatically, by the live performer interacting in a variety of conventional and unconventional ways with the instrument which is personified as his lover. Both the vocal part and various sound material from the bass are digitally processed through resonators that model the characteristics of the open strings of the instrument, thereby linking them sonically and musically, as if each is speaking through the other. The work was commissioned by and is dedicated to the virtuoso American double bassist Robert Black.
The feminine counterpart to this work is Wings of Fire for female cellist, based on a poem by Joy Kirstin.
Structural Overview Production Score
Technical noteThe work was realized using the composer's PODX system which incorporates the DMX-1000 Digital Signal Processor controlled by a PDP Micro-11 computer. The principal signal processing technique involves digital resonators, time stretching and harmonizing of the sampled sounds with software for real-time granular synthesis and processing developed by the composer in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.
* Text copyright © 1977 by Tennessee Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.