DECOMPOSITION STUDIES is a research project that materializes as improvised, collaborative processes in which I propose written music to be taken apart and expanded musically by a group of musicians in real time. Both the musical language and the instruments (acoustic, classical instruments and Baroque aesthetics in general) date from the era when humans were beginning to celebrate the explosive potential of fossil fuels and didn’t yet realize the horrific consequences. The approach embraces an aesthetics of care which requires listening together with one’s instrument as a non-human companion, with whom the musical event will emerge through deep, iterative exploration of tones and timbres. Overdrive and highly-sensitive microtonality encourage us to joyfully grieve the decaying, binary norms of traditional European culture. In this way, the process resembles that of a compost pile whose enzymes are left to work their magic, creating energy and enabling new, rhizomatic flora.

DECOMPOSITIONS (BWV 1017) for Harpsichord and Violin

Performed at St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, 22 November 2024 by Ed Williams (harpsichord) and Anouck Genthon (violin). Decompositions (Sonata) decomposes the harmonic progression of the Siciliano from Sonata IV in C minor by J S Bach (c.1720). Here, the duo Ed Williams and Anouck Genthon play with the commonalities as well as the dissonances between the normally separate worlds of experimental and baroque music.

DECOMPOSITION STUDY FOR ARCIORGANO

Recording of Decomposition Study for microtonal Arciorgano and six players available on INSUB. Records

Decomposition Study is a collaborative process. The instrument featured here is an arciorgano, a special microtonal organo di legno with two manually operated bellows and 36-key octaves across two manuals, constructed according to Nicola Vicentino’s designs from 1555. The notes of the music, written according to the rules of canonic contrapunto alla mente, are passed between two organists while four other musicians disrupt and amplify the organ’s airflow, acting similarly to cellular enzymes in decaying organisms during the decompositional process called autolysis. The music is decomposed as it is played, re-composed as it is heard.

DECOMPOSED CLAVICHORD

now available on cassette on ZOK Records:

This is an improvised performance on a clavichord made by Henry Tull, London, c.1934. The instrument was amplified and also distorted with an Electro-Harmonix Soul Food pedal.
The clavichord is not in perfect shape, and many extra noises appear within the contact made between the strings and the brass tangents that strike them. This allows me to decompose my own gestures as the sounds produced are decomposed by these initially unintentional, mechanical interferences.
For this performance, I also took pre-existing musical material and treated it to this decomposition process: a short piece from the collection Fiori Musicali by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1635). Meaning “musical flowers”, the music in this collection is itself based on music from an even earlier time, taking Gregorian chants and embellishing them in the style of 17th-Century organ improvisations.

Soave Dolc’Ardore – A Decomposition for String Quartet (2024)

Semi-improvised, emergent composition based on the extant extract of the enharmonic madrigal Soave Dolc’Ardore by Nicola Vicentino (c.1555). With: Rahel Boell (violin), Noam Lelior Gal (violin), Lorenz Stalder (viola), James Morley (cello).

Performed on 17.03.24 at the Hochschule für Musik, Basel, for the AKUT concert series.

L’ENHARMONIQUE DECOMPOSED

A decomposition of a re-transcribed 6-bar extract from “L’Enharominque” by Jean-Philippe Rameau in his Nouvelles Suites de pièces de clavecin (1727). Although the original title’s use of the word “enharmonic” seems to refer refer to the multiple harmonic positions held by one pitch, here the original notes are re-transcribed into the actual “enharmonic” genus as it was conceived by the 16th century theorist Nicola Vicentino, resulting in many more transitory pitches.

This performance took place on July 5, 2024, Eglise Sainte Aurélie, Strasbourg, France, as part of the festival Les Habité·es.

Performers:
Mara Winter (traverso)
Johanna Bartz (traverso)
Anna-Kaisa Meklin (viola da gamba)
Ed Williams (organ)

STUDIES FOR DECOMPOSING FLOWERS

For two Viola da Gamba and Intonarumori. Performed by Bianca Cucini, Oriane Weyl (Viola da Gamba) and Ed Williams (intonarumori) at Museum Tinguely for the exhibition A Bruit Secret on 1st May, 2023.

Performed at Neuer Saal, Hochschule für Musik, Basel, 21 April 2023.

DECOMPOSITION STUDY FOR KASSEL

with Oleksandra Katsalap, Muaricio Silva Orendain, Ivan Liuzzo, Olli Moilanen, Robin Michel, Ed Williams. Performed on the Rieger-Orgeln (Experimentalmodul and Grosse Orgel) and Cube Speaker at Martinskirche, Kassel for BRANDNEU Internationaler Orgelsommer 2022 https://www.musik-martinskirche.de/Reihen/Internationaler-Orgelsommer-2022

Decompositions of 13th Century Laude songs for electric guitar

Decomposing Frescobaldi for amplified harpsichord