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RECITAL REVIEW Enriching Instrumental Technique October 12, 2002
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By Susan Waller
A Robert Dick concert is not for everyone. He is an avant-garde
flutist/composer who has been instrumental in developing a new musical
language for the flute. This is no small accomplishment — the flute world is
notoriously conservative. For those of us trained in a more “classical”
tradition, hearing this music can be mind-boggling, as well as inspiring
and satisfying. In his performance at New Langton Arts last Saturday he presented
seven of his own compositions (1970s-2001) for solo flutes, including the traditional concert flute, open-hole alto flute, and bass flute in two different sizes.
The first time I heard Robert Dick perform, in
the mid-1970's, it was a “knock your socks off” performance,
also my first real exposure to the world of “extended techniques” in avant-garde flute playing. Then, as now, I was impressed by Dick's ability to
incorporate the “extended techniques” into his music in a way that makes
them seem almost traditional. “Extended techniques” are unusual or untraditional
methods of playing the flute, which enrich and extend the sound and expressive
range of the instrument. (This starts with the Western classical music tradition as a
basis.)
Many contemporary composers for flute seem to have bought a book on
these sounds (probably the one written by Robert Dick) without really having
a sense of the actual sound or the practicality of performance. They try to
incorporate a few in each piece, just for the sake of being modern. Not
Robert Dick. These sounds flow freely from his imagination.
Saturday's performance could have been an audio textbook for extended techniques. There were: multi-phonics (more than one note sounding at one time); micro-tones (intervals smaller than the half step); whistle tones (a light, piercing sound); note bending, an extreme array of tone colors — from very dark and edgy with lots of harmonics in the tone, through all degrees of intensity, including a very beautiful “normal” tone, to very light and airy with almost no real tone at all There were also: trill and tremolo effects, percussive effects, in the key strokes and by the tongue, various vocalizations, circular breathing. Most of the tone changes are produced by the manipulation of the air, both in direction and speed, as well as by a great variety of different fingerings to produce different tone colors. Some tone colors are obviously designed to imitate flutes of Asian or African musical cultures. A series of microphones was used for amplification in order to make the extremely subtle effects audible. All this technical stuff is impressive and shows great technical command of the instrument; but what makes Robert Dick's music unique is the complexity of his compositions for solo flute. In traditional, unaccompanied flute music, produced one note at a time, the challenge is to make a musical phrase and show direction of the musical line without a harmonic structure or accompanying rhythm. In Dick's works however, there are many different layers of activity at the same time. These may include some sort of sustained sounds (either played or sung), multi-phonics of all sorts, and percussive effects.
Also, many improvisatory pieces seem to have a run-on sentence or stream-of-consciousness structure without a noticeable sense of beginning, middle, and end. In some cases this is intentional, but it can be bothersome if, like I, you want to understand the architecture of a work. In most of Dick's compositions, there is a definite and clear sense of where you are in the piece. Dick is also an inventor, and he seems unwilling to accept technical or musical limitations. For example, admitting great jealousy of the “whammy bar” used on the electric guitar to produce a glissando, he invented the “Robert Dick Glissando Headjoint” for the flute. This tube-within-a-tube construction enables the flutist to slide smoothly through a series of notes like a slide trombone. His performance of Sliding Life Blues (2001) was a perfect showcase for this. The most memorable works, perhaps somewhat due to the novelty of the instruments involved, were the two pieces for bass flute, Unnamed Piece for bass flute in C and If for the even larger bass flute in F. The latter included sounds ranging from those of the string bass pizzicato to those of the drum set. Robert Dick plays the bass flute as a virtuoso instrument, not as a background instrument as it is often classified. Dick's spoken program notes were excellent, giving insight into his personality and approach as well as detailed information about each selection and its origin. He revealed that he derives his inspiration from literature, science fiction, and musical sounds from many different cultures. Robert Dick believes that every composer should perform and that every performer should compose and his concert lived up to that point of view.
(Susan Waller is a flutist who performs in both orchestra and chamber music
throughout Northern California. She holds a D.M.A. degree in flute
performance and is a former university instructor.)
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