Four Names of Beauty
Subtitle: for orchestra.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 46
Description: Four Names of Beauty is a work for orchestra in four movements, scored for flute doubling piccolo, flute doubling bass flute, two oboes, bassoon, bassoon doubling contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, 1 percussionist (xylophone, glockenspiel, Chinese cymbal, high and low woodblocks), piano, and strings. The work is based upon computer analyses of recordings of spoken text. The recordings consist of four different speakers, each pronouncing the word for 'Beauty' in their native language. The four languages are Polish, English, Mandarin, and Portuguese. The analyses were done using software that the author initially developed for use in electroacoustic music, and adapted for the present work. This software (implemented in the Python language using the extension library Loris, which uses an extended McAuley-Quatieri tracking phase vocoder algorithm) performs a spectral analysis, giving a list of partials for each recording. Each partial contains information on frequency and amplitude, and how these parameters vary over time. Further computer processing, along with some critical editing 'by hand' by the author, was used to convert this data to musical notes (rounded to the nearest quarter-tone) and dynamics. The resulting lists formed the basis of the material for this composition. In general the material derived from each word formed the corresponding source material for each of the work's four movements, but the material was not kept absolutely discrete, and some intermixing occurs. All other musical parameters (timbre, rhythm, aspects of phrasing and structure) have been intuitively arrived at, in a manner intended to complement the pitch and dynamic profile of the work. Philosophically,  Four Names of Beauty is related in a non-doctrinal manner to the work of the French Spectralist school, but the emphasis here is on sound and orchestral texture rather than strict adherence to the results of the spectral analysis.
Notes: Thesis (Mus.Doc.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

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Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-06, Section: A, page: 2021.